Dumb and Dumber: Dems Pick a Doozy for VP

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The most important criterion for a vice president is the capability to serve competently as the president, should that become necessary. Some say that is the only necessary test, as a vice president’s job is mostly to stand around in case there is a vacancy at the top.

Tim Walz, Harris’s surprise pick for VP, flunks that test badly. His career was as a high school geography teacher and assistant football coach. Perhaps Walz was chosen as impeachment insurance for Kamala Harris, because as bad as Kamala would be no one would want the clueless Walz running our country. This ticket of Harris and Walz reminds of the hit comedy, “Dumb and Dumber.”

We have been witnessing the calamities that occur when we have a president who is not mentally up to the many difficult challenges of that job. Maintaining peace through strength as president, or presiding over the Senate as a vice president must do, are not as straightforward as being an assistant football coach of teenagers, which is Walz’s career highlight after graduating with a degree in social science education from Chadron State College.

Walz’s alma mater Chadron State College ranks only #132 out of 167 regional universities in the Midwest, according to the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings. Democrats are delusional if they think voters in the key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin feel any connection with this underachiever from Minnesota, as Midwestern states are rivals of each other.

Harris thumbed her nose at Pennsylvania and Arizona by passing over their contenders for this selection. The grip held by the transgender and LGBTQ faction on the Democrat Party partly explains this choice, which was contrary to what experts were predicting.

As the Minnesota governor, Walz allowed and welcomed transgender surgeries on children, which harm them for life, and is supportive of unlimited abortion on demand. He has a 100% rating by Planned Parenthood, and he lacks any strong religious affiliation that might get in the way of the far-left agenda on social issues.

Meanwhile, Walz banned therapies that might reduce same-sex attractions, while allowing therapies that promote LGBTQ+ conduct. Infringing on the First Amendment, Walz signed a law threatening license revocation of any physician or therapist who refers to LGBTQ+ tendencies as a “mental disease, disorder or illness,” or offers to rectify gender confusion.

Walz satisfied Dems’ litmus test of being an outspoken advocate of more U.S. military aid to Ukraine in its never-ending, NATO-induced war with Russia. The first shipment of F-16 fighters has just arrived in Ukraine, which enables it to bomb deep into Russia and thereby entangle us further in that war.

By pandering to the teachers’ union to which he once belonged, Walz first became a congressman with an undistinguished record, and then the Minnesota governor in 2019. Democrats apparently hope to appeal to rural, high school-educated voters in the Midwest with this choice.

But those rural voters lacking a college degree who overwhelmingly support Trump are not going to prefer an underachieving alternative. Walz did not, and was possibly unable to, fully satisfy the coursework curriculum required for his rank by the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy while he was in the National Guard.

In 1995, Walz was arrested for driving 96 miles per hour while drunk, more than 40 miles per hour over the speed limit. He said that after he was stopped he could not understand what the police officer was telling him.

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have among the highest commercial vacancy rates among American cities, because many businesses have moved out due to Walz’s pandering to the Left. Walz sided with Black Lives Matter, refusing to send in the National Guard for three days while Minneapolis burned, and he has hindered the ability of the police to protect retail stores and law-abiding citizens.

In picking Walz, Harris passed over the battleground state of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who might have helped her win some votes there. Walz is not equipped to become president, in sharp contrast with Trump’s accomplished VP, JD Vance.

The never-Trumper neocons are among the biggest losers in this selection of Walz, who is not even from a swing state that he might help Democrats carry. The warmongers lobbied hard for Shapiro, who would at least have some credibility on the world stage while Walz does not.

But a nothing-ticket is exactly what the globalist power-brokers want: candidates they can completely control. Walz is plainly a puppet for the elite, as is Harris, so this is their dream ticket.

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.

Krazy Kamala’s Pennsylvania Problem

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Of the 47 employees whom Kamala Harris hired in 2021, only 4 remain without interruption according to the nonpartisan watchdog group Open The Books. Everyone else left or was fired by Harris, who has been described as a “soul-destroying bully.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks observes that “from her time as the San Francisco district attorney straight through her time as vice president, Harris has earned a reputation for degrading underlings and burning through staff.” High-level White House officials, including the current press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, reportedly took less-significant initial administration jobs to avoid working for Harris.

Top Democrats, including Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, were initially reluctant to endorse Harris while she was pushed by a secretive backroom elite. The New York Post reported that the real reason Biden endorsed Harris was as a payback for a grudge that Biden holds against Obama.

Suddenly, as a result of Dems replacing Biden with Kamala, Pennsylvania and its prize of 19 Electoral College votes are ripe for Trump to win. Biden won northeastern Pennsylvania only because he had grown up there, and the major thoroughfare in Scranton is even named after him.

In contrast, Kamala went to grade school in Berkeley, California, one of the most liberal towns in the United States, and her political career comes from across the bay in San Francisco. She and her supporters do not have any connection with the Pennsylvania voters she needs to win to have a chance.

“They cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Obama famously disparaged Pennsylvanians when speaking at a fundraiser with San Francisco liberals while he was running for president. Democrat strategist James Carville said that “Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.”

Kamala Harris’s Pennsylvania problem is not because she is different, but because she is a puppet of the liberal elite who swapped her in place of the candidate nominated by Pennsylvanians, namely “Scranton Joe” Biden. This quiet coup has made Kamala the Democrat nominee contrary to the democratic process that liberals pretend to support.

Meanwhile, the same Deep State that is trying to force the country to vote for Harris also tries to change the facts about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, which occurred on July 13 in Pennsylvania. The FBI Director Christopher Wray absurdly testified before Congress that it may have been shrapnel rather than a bullet that struck Trump in his ear during his rally in Butler.

This demonic twisting of the facts was widely ridiculed outside of D.C., including by Trump’s own criticism of this lie. Yet this is the sort of deception that the Deep State is accustomed to getting away with in its politically motivated misstatements to Congress and to the public.

Last Friday evening, when everyone knows that public statements receive the least publicity in the media, the FBI finally admitted that “what struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.” That bizarre admission is as far as the Deep State has gotten more than two weeks after the nearly successful assassination attempt on Trump.

The Pennsylvania SWAT team criticized the Secret Service for failing to coordinate with them as promised prior to this assassination attempt, which killed a beloved firefighter as he protected his family. Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris testified that the state police promptly forwarded to the Secret Service the information of concern about the assassin prior to the shooting.

Trump has announced he will return to hold a rally there in honor of the slain firefighter, Corey Comperatore. Corey was with his family in the front row due to the generosity of another who saw them standing and offered the seats to them.

Republicans recently overtook Democrats in registration in Bucks County in eastern Pennsylvania, which Biden carried by 4 points in 2020. No Republican presidential candidate has won this county since 1988, but Trump is on track to carry it this time.

“We’re all ecstatic,” said the chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee, Pat Poprick.

Liberals trot out Hollywood actresses to cheerlead for Harris, but Hollywood values do not play well in this Commonwealth of guns and Bibles. Pennsylvania has one of the largest veteran populations, among whom Trump is particularly popular due to his support of peace through strength.

Recognizing their vulnerability on these issues, Democrats turn to the cartoonish-looking Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) as their expected choice for VP. Completely bald and shorter than unsuccessful presidential candidates such as Michael Dukakis, this new Dem ticket would be the Odd Couple of Krazy Kamala and Little Mark.

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.

California Kamala: a Calamity for our Country

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Barely 100 days before the biggest election of our lifetimes, Democrats have changed their horse during the race. Power brokers gave Joe Biden an ultimatum of Sunday to withdraw from his reelection campaign, despite how he was the democratically nominated candidate who said emphatically on Friday that he would remain in the race.

This arm-twisting of an American president by insiders and billionaires was humiliating to the United States, and another sign of decline about which Trump rightly complains. The signature on Biden’s withdrawal letter does not match Biden’s signature on his executive orders and other public documents.

The passage of days without Biden speaking publicly to the American people about this is also shocking. A terrible precedent is set if powerful insiders can force a president to sign a letter of resignation, possibly against his free will, without the president first looking the American people in the eye to explain himself.

This behind-the-scenes manipulation of our president reinforces the need to elect Trump to Make America Great Again. The liberal media criticized Trump for saying at his enormous Michigan rally on Saturday that America is failing, but the next day the proof came in with this suspicious withdrawal by President Biden, as conveyed merely by a posting on X.com.

Within 24 hours Democrats announced that enough delegates had been lined up to nominate as Biden’s replacement Kamala Harris, who rose through the ranks in California on the arm of the Golden State’s most powerful politician, Willie Brown. No world leader is going to take Harris seriously with that background, and she won’t be able to end the Ukraine-Russia war as Trump would quickly do.

An escalation of the war against Russia is what power brokers want in picking Harris. The Deep State would be in charge if she were to become president, and while Biden was dropping out two U.S. Air Force B-52H bombers were sent by someone to Russia’s border near Finland to be confronted by Russian MiG-29 and MiG-31 fighter jets.

The pandemic of homelessness and crime in San Francisco became far worse while Harris was Attorney General of the State, unwilling to do anything to clean it up. Harris also fully supports the anti-parent transgender movement which just enacted a new California law to stop teachers from informing parents about their gender-confused children, a law that Elon Musk has sharply criticized.

Musk packed his bags and moved two of his companies out of California, and we do not want businesses and people moving out of the United States under California Kamala as president. She was the DEI pick for VP in 2020, and before that her record was devoid of any accomplishments, in contrast with Trump’s record of enormous achievements during his first term as president.

Trump can campaign against involving the U.S. in foreign wars, which is an issue that has won for Republican candidates in the past because most Americans are opposed to these wars and against looting Americans to fund them. The draft has been reinstated in some European countries in anticipation of the Ukraine-Russia war getting worse, and Trump can win by emphasizing that he will end that war.

The transgender issue is another winner for Trump in the battleground states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. California is far to the Left of middle America, and many parents are distressed about how schools are misleading their children about gender confusion.

The inexperience of Harris in handling the responsibilities of a presidency is a campaign theme that will resonate with voters, as the Biden-Harris inflation ravages everyone’s savings and salaries. Immature, not-ready-for-prime-time, unpresidential and even the "Joker" are all adjectives that fit Harris.

California values have never before been allowed to take control of the White House, as the prior presidents from California were Republicans. Californian Willie Brown said recently about his former side chick Kamala Harris that Biden should resign now to allow Harris to become president immediately, and thereby increase her chances of being elected in November.

Mistress Kamala has already failed miserably in the one job she was given, which was to take charge of our southern border. We’ve had the worst migrant crisis in our history on her watch.

“Hypocrite Harris” would be an apt nickname for how she relentlessly prosecuted many petty marijuana offenses in California, and then laughed in response to whether she smoked pot herself. When it became politically advantageous to advocate for legalizing the drug, she jumped on that bandwagon.

Whether it’s “Mistress Kamala” or “Hypocrite Harris,” it would be a catastrophe for our country if Democrats’ bait-and-switch trick were to prevail. Her far-Left politics failed the Left Coast and would be disastrous for our Nation.

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.

MAGA Is Unstoppable Now

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Legendary heroism shined from Trump and his MAGA supporters who attended the Pennsylvania rally where a gunman shot Trump and attendees from a rooftop 400 feet away. The shooter easily evaded law enforcement but did not scare Trump or the MAGA crowd, which held their ground and chanted “USA” after Trump pumped his fist in response to the deadly gunfire.

Video captured fearless MAGA attendees who cared more about Trump’s safety than trying to flee the area to protect themselves, as customarily happens when crowds panic. Some attendees even spotted and filmed the gunman bear-crawling ominously on a nearby roof before he began shooting, and alerted law enforcement to no avail.

Earlier in the day, the assassin went to Home Depot and purchased a metal ladder, which he could have easily used to climb onto a factory roof from where he had his straight rifle shot at Trump. A local police counter-sniper team was absurdly huddled inside the same building during all this, while the Secret Service protection did not extend its security perimeter as far as a mere 400 feet from the podium.

It is the duty of Secret Service, not local police, to fully protect the leading presidential candidate, who is Trump. The Director of Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, who obtained her job through Jill Biden, has since admitted that this security breach was ultimately her responsibility.

Yet she refuses to resign. With Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as her priority, apparently a catastrophic failure to do her own job is not what really matters. Her explanation for not placing a Secret Service agent on the rooftop used by the gunman with a straight shot at the future president is reason alone to fire her.

“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” Cheatle said to ABC News on Tuesday.

The scrawny gunman with no military background or athletic prowess had no difficulty attaining the peak of the unguarded roof, a high point that every competent security expert knows should be protected, and from there shot with deadly accuracy at Trump. Many, including Elon Musk, faulted the DEI mindset for this security failure.

Burly MAGA supporters would have been thrilled to stand guard on the slightly sloped rooftops, while enjoying Trump’s presentation. Instead, the Biden administration disarmed all the MAGA attendees, and failed to protect them against the shooter who killed one heroic former fire chief, critically injured two others, and shot our future president Trump.

The biased liberal headlines immediately afterward, despite blood streaming down Trump’s face, included “Trump escorted away after loud noises at Pa. rally” in the Washington Post, and “Secret Service rushes Trump offstage after he falls at rally” by CNN. “Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles former president, crowd,” was the USA Today headline.

Liberals lament how outspoken billionaires like Musk have frustrated their ability to control the narrative about this shooting. Now the Biden administration (FBI and DHS) are even falsely warning of “retaliatory acts of violence” by Trump supporters!

This shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was said to be a video game enthusiast, which means he probably spent many isolated hours each week playing violent video games. A common characteristic of young men who go on shooting sprees is their addiction to violent video games, which train them to rapidly fire to score as many points as possible.

The FBI has reportedly since told local authorities, including police and even his high school, not to speak with the media, which enables the FBI to control the narrative. The FBI has his laptop, but is not disclosing to the public how Crooks spent his time on it as he lived at home.

While law enforcement made many mistakes resulting in this egregious breach of security by a neophyte, its biggest mistake of all is in treating MAGA rally attendees as adversaries rather than allies in protecting Trump. The shooter was acting suspiciously before the rally, as noticed by a police officer, and any MAGA attendee would have been happy and unafraid to keep his eye on this killer if merely asked to do so.

Biden’s cold, callous statements after the shooting on Saturday blamed everyone except himself and his own political appointee for failing to safeguard Trump against a kid with a rifle. The GOP-majority House will hold a hearing next week on what even Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, admits was a security failure, and everyone on the committee should call for the Secret Service director to resign.

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.

Trump’s One-Two Punch Rattles Biden

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The presidential debate between Trump and Biden last Thursday was one of the most stunning knockouts in history. A chorus of liberals, including a senior Democrat congressman from Austin, calling for Biden to quit the race confirms that Trump mopped the floor with him.

Trump’s flawless performance repeatedly hit the target without a single gaffe. Even in New Hampshire, which is all Trump needs if he maintains his leads in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, Trump has jumped to a 44-42% lead over Biden in the post-debate St. Anselm College poll, a 12-point swing from December.

Biden ineptly boasted at the debate about his pullout from Afghanistan, whereupon Trump decked him by demonstrating how badly Biden bungled that departure. Trump then sharply criticized Biden for failing to fire anyone for it.

Biden had spent weeks preparing for this debate, while Trump spent his time on the campaign trail before enthusiastic crowds. Yet Trump seemed better prepared on Thursday night, pouncing on the openings handed to him by the confused, disoriented Biden.

When the issue of Biden’s lavish funding of the never-ending war in Ukraine came up, Trump pointed out that there is an ocean separating us from that conflict. The United States should not be paying for a distant war against Russia, and Trump promised to end the conflict once he is reelected later this year.

When Biden brought up NATO, Trump emphasized how he stopped the freeloading by European members of that anachronistic, globalist organization. When Biden tried to take credit for new jobs, Trump observed that most of the new jobs have gone to migrants rather than Americans.

Biden tried to take credit for proposing something (without doing anything) about the crisis on the southern border, but Trump shot that down by explaining how disastrous for our country Biden’s letting in millions of illegal aliens has been. When Biden said he’s trying to reduce inflation, Trump retorted that it is Biden who caused the inflation.

On two issues where liberals expected to score points, Trump turned the tables and came out ahead. He lambasted the endless Covid vaccine mandates by Biden, and declared victory in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that had been widely criticized by constitutional scholars.

The second punch in Trump’s favor came on Monday, when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against allowing Biden’s biased special counsel to continue prosecuting Trump for his official acts as president. While the Court left the door open for prosecuting an ex-president for unofficial acts, the Court extended absolute immunity for Trump to his conduct undertaken as part of his core presidential duties, and even prohibited courts from reviewing those actions.

“We thus conclude that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority,” the Court held. “The immunity we have recognized extends to the outer perimeter of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority,” added the Court.

The Court granted a presumption of immunity for Trump’s communications while in office, such as his discussions with Vice President Mike Pence about January 6. Trump enjoys “at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility,” held the Court.

A president’s private conduct may be prosecuted, but “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives,” the Court ruled. “Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.”

Examples of unofficial acts by a president for which immunity would be lacking could include an ordinary crime of violence, none of which is alleged against Trump. On remand a biased judge in D.C. might try to allow some charges to proceed against Trump, but not in time to block Trump’s reelection.

Liberal justices on the Court were livid in dissent, with the mainstream media on their side. But if their view had prevailed, then we would have judicial supremacy that second-guesses actions by Republican presidents.

Instead, the prosecution of Trump in D.C. will be remanded to the trial court, where Trump will receive absolute immunity from many of the allegations and presumptive immunity from others. More voters would likely shift to Trump if the Jamaican-born, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan threatens to put Trump on trial so close to the election.

Suddenly Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, who has taken a cautious approach toward Jack Smith’s charges against Trump there, emerges as the wise judge in being skeptical of the prosecution of Trump. On Monday the Supreme Court rejected liberal courts’ reliance on the supposedly “good faith of prosecutors,” because anti-Trump prosecutors are not acting in good faith.

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.

Why Liberals Fear Trump’s Second Term More than His First

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Liberals fear a second term by Trump as president far more than they feared his first. There are multiple reasons why Trump’s second presidential term will be more productive and beneficial than any other in modern history.

All the Never-Trumpers who obstructed Trump from within the Republican Party are gone. No more Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Pat Toomey, and many others whose names have already been forgotten.

Globalist Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced three months ago that he will not run for Majority Leader of the Senate, a position he held throughout Trump’s first term. There will be a contested race to succeed him, with the candidate who seeks and obtains Trump’s endorsement most likely to prevail.

The increased entanglement by the United States in funding the NATO war in Ukraine has recently prompted Russia to summon U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy to tell her that retaliation by Russia would “definitely follow.” Russia blames American-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles for killing civilians in the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula, and Russia says that U.S. spy satellites provided the guidance of those missiles.

While Biden recently escalated American involvement in that perpetual and unwinnable war, Trump has promised to bring peace there as soon as he is elected. Ukraine’s Zelensky is demanding use of weapons from the U.S. to strike targets within Russia, a significant increase in our role that would draw us into a dangerous direct confrontation with Russia.

The bloated spending on foreign wars in Ukraine and the Middle East is at the insistence of Democrats and globalists who have done everything they can to interfere unfairly with Trump’s agenda for a second term. Last week the Congressional Budget Office increased its estimate for the budget deficit this fiscal year from $1.58 trillion to nearly $2 trillion.

This debt will fall upon future working Americans, and it amounts to an annual addition of $40,000 per person in new liability when allocated to the segment of our population that is aged 0 to 13 today. The spending on the war in Ukraine is a bottomless pit with no end in sight.

Trump was constrained in what he could achieve during his first term due to the baseless but abusive Mueller investigation, and bad advice by Republicans. Some aides who never should have been in the White House worked more to advance themselves than to help Trump make our country great again, but these cockroaches have all been smoked out in the last three years.

At the time of his first inauguration, Trump had recently opened his spectacular new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue and he understandably expected to be welcomed by the city, not yet realizing how malevolent it had become. In 2017 Trump’s hotel was attracting thousands of visitors to D.C., but he has since sold that property and in his second term Trump is likely to view D.C. as the enemy of our country that it is.

The returning Trump will be far more adversarial towards this city that loots our country, persecutes patriots, and acts with derangement toward Trump. It is not that Trump will retaliate, which he has never done throughout his long career, but rather that he will not take any prisoners or tolerate traitors on his staff.

All Republicans and even some Democrats are petrified by how Trump just catapulted a little-known Republican challenger past the entrenched, powerful incumbent Rep. Bob Good (R-VA). No incumbent this year had yet lost in his own primary, but Trump-endorsed John McGuire declared victory last Tuesday night in the biggest upset of the year.

Rep. Good, who chairs the conservative Freedom Caucus in the House, crossed Trump by endorsing Ron DeSantis for president. More recently, Rep. Good was publicly critical of the motion by Trump enthusiast Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to vacate the chair of Speaker Mike Johnson.

First elected in 2020, Rep. Good had previously worked for 15 years at Liberty University which employs thousands in his congressional district, and seemed unbeatable in his own primary but his challenger’s lead has increased as ballot counting continues. McGuire campaigned that if Rep. Good “can change his mind on Trump, then we the people can change their mind on Bob Good,” and voters did just that.

Every other Republican in Congress heard the message of this stunning upset loud and clear: fully support Trump or start looking for a new job outside of politics.

All this points to a second Trump term as becoming the most effective ever. The border wall will be completed; illegals will be deported; American entanglement in foreign wars will end; manufacturing workers won't continue losing their jobs; and America will become great again.

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.

Blocking Biden’s Transgender Mandate on Schools

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

In the last week, four different federal courts independently arrived at the same conclusion: Biden’s policy to impose his transgender ideology on public schools is unlawful. Biden insists, beginning with the upcoming school year, that every public school in America open its girls’ restrooms and locker rooms to boys who think they are girls.

More than half our country – 27 states – have sued to block this policy. Republican states seek to protect girls against this transgender invasion by biological boys, while Democrat politicians controlling the other 23 states promote the trans agenda.

California cities declare themselves to be sanctuaries for transgenders, and that state’s legislature also recently voted to prohibit school district policies of informing parents when their own children try to switch genders. Misnamed the SAFETY Act, AB 1955 is so anti-parent that it would result in schools concealing children’s gender confusion from their own parents.

In five blue states this spring, biological boys won state championships by competing in girls’ sports. Biden wants to extend this liberal madness nationwide, by misinterpreting a 1972 law that was intended to protect girls against discrimination in schools: Title IX.

Title IX states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” By redefining “sex” to include students’ changing views of their own gender, Biden bans any limits by public and charter schools on transgenders.

On Monday, federal judge Danny C. Reeves in Kentucky held that Biden’s new regulation is “arbitrary in the truest sense of the word,” and he blocked it in that state plus Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Last Friday another federal judge, in Louisiana, blocked Biden’s regulation from being enforced in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana.

The election of Trump would shut down Biden’s lawless push for the trans agenda in our public schools. Trump has campaigned on his commitment to protect girls’ sports and locker rooms against boys who think or pretend they are girls.

In Boston, an all-Democrat panel of the First Circuit held on June 9 that 12-year-old Liam Morrison was properly prohibited by a public school from wearing a t-shirt that said, “There Are Only Two Genders.” He was further prevented from wearing that same t-shirt with the words “Only Two” covered by a piece of tape on which was written “CENSORED,” all of which the court held the school properly banned under its hate speech code.

But the Northeast and the West Coast do not have the final word on this issue. On June 11, a GOP-appointed federal judge in Fort Worth blocked Biden’s transgender school policy for all of Texas.

Judge Reed O’Connor held that the Biden Administration “lacks authority to redefine ‘sex’ in a way that conflicts with Title IX.”

A federal judge in Louisiana, Terry Doughty, held that Biden’s analysis wrongly focused on only the effect on transgender students, rather than girls who must then “use the bathroom, undress, and shower in the presence of persons who may identify as females but still have male biological parts.” Biden’s Department of Education “made no attempt to determine the effect on students having students who are biologically the opposite sex in their locker rooms and bathrooms.”

Judge Doughty further held that “the DOE declared in the Final Rule, with no explanation, that transgender students do not pose a safety risk for cisgender students.” The newly coined term for the vast majority of children, who are not transgendered, is to call them “cisgendered.”

More good news came last week from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Trump-appointed judges provided the 2-1 majority decision against Biden’s pro-transgender policy for schools, as embodied in Biden’s 2021 Title IX guidance.

This appellate decision protects 20 red states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Additional states, including Florida, Utah, and Wyoming, have filed lawsuits within their own jurisdictions.

Midwestern states, including Iowa and North Dakota, have sued in St. Louis within the conservative Eighth Circuit, and other lawsuits including Texas and Virginia mentioned above round out the total of 27. Prior rulings by the more liberal Fourth and Seventh Circuits held that there is a transgender right of access to girls’ restrooms under both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

While some expect the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the widening divide in our country on this issue, that Court remains unwilling to get involved. Instead, it will be the upcoming presidential election that determines whether gender-confused boys will invade schoolgirls’ restrooms, locker rooms, and sports competitions.

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

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

Trump’s Surge Transforms the Electoral Map

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Trump’s remarkable surge in Nevada is transforming the electoral map for this election. An overflow crowd turned out for Trump at an open-air rally in Las Vegas, despite the sweltering 105-degree heat.

The crowd roared in approval as Trump described what he would accomplish in his second term in office, undeterred by the failure of his teleprompter. When Trump dramatically promised to end the taxation of tips, an essential part of the free market in that hospitality-based city, the crowd thundered in applause.

Trump’s pledge resonates with many union workers who have voted Democratic in the past. Meanwhile, a filing in court on Monday revealed that the pro-Biden president of the United Auto Workers, Shawn Fain, is under investigation for allegations that he retaliated against other union leaders, which could cause Biden to lose in Michigan.

Some union bosses in Nevada toe the Democrat Party line, but the rank-and-file workers are making their own decisions to support Trump. The only candidate to unseat an incumbent governor in 2022 was Trump-endorsed Joe Lombardo in Nevada.

Gov. Lombardo explained on Monday in his article published by the New York Times that “inflation is costing Nevadans an extra $1,199 per month to purchase the same goods and services as in January 2021. Since Mr. Biden took office, groceries are up 20.6 percent, rent is up 21.6 percent and gas is up 46.99 percent.”

Lombardo concluded about Biden that “after three and a half years, Nevadans are losing confidence in him to do something meaningful about inflation and housing and are left with the feeling that he just doesn’t get it.” Biden’s approval rating has fallen to his lowest ever, only 37.6%, in the widely followed FiveThirtyEight amalgamation of polls.

Biden has much to answer for, from the inflation ravaging the hospitality industry of restaurants and hotels, to the uncontrolled immigration that has soaked up all the job openings nationwide. Nevada’s large Hispanic population has traditionally voted Democratic, but today most Hispanics favor deporting illegal aliens back to where they came from.

Trump has opened up a 5-point lead over Biden in Nevada, and nearly that much in next-door Arizona. Even the Democrat stronghold of New Mexico may no longer be guaranteed to vote for Biden this time.

In Las Vegas on Sunday Trump ridiculed Biden’s new proposal to curb illegal immigration, and the crowd cheered Trump’s tough stance on the border. “Millions of people will continue pouring in, and they’re coming right through the border like they’ve never come through before,” Trump declared.

In disparagement of Biden’s recent attempt to save face on this issue with an executive order, Trump observed that “what [Biden] signed means nothing – in fact it makes it easier, in my opinion, it opens the border still further.”

“For three and a half years, the people of Nevada have had a front-row seat to Joe Biden’s evil and criminal obliteration of our southern border,” Trump told the exuberant Nevada crowd. “It’s criminal what he’s done,” Trump added.

Trump praised the January 6, 2021 rally goers at the Capitol as “warriors,” to the delight of the crowd but the dismay of liberals. Trump has said that the members of the House J6 Committee should be prosecuted instead.

Steve Bannon faces imprisonment soon for properly declining to comply with the fishing expedition of the then-Democrat-controlled House J6 Committee, which spent more than a year and millions of dollars improperly trying to harm Trump. As Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) pointed out, the current GOP-majority House could simply rescind the subpoena on Bannon, which would give him a strong new argument to overturn his conviction in anti-Trump D.C.

Despite how federal workers view Trump as a threat to their cushy jobs and many of them live in Virginia, recent polling shows that Trump has a chance to win that state and its 13 Electoral College votes. Many veterans, who overwhelmingly support Trump, vote in Virginia while numerous parents there are upset at the pushing of transgender and other liberal goals in its public schools.

The election is expected to be decided in only a few swing states, but Trump is transforming the Electoral College map in ways that Democrats did not expect. Biden will need to campaign in favor of federal workers in Virginia, which will make it more difficult for him to win decisive states in the Southwest and upper Midwest.

Nationalist, pro-Trump political parties did spectacularly well in the recent European Parliament elections. The party of the Biden-endorsed Emmanuel Macron suffered a crushing defeat in France, while conservatives likewise routed liberals in Germany and Italy.

Biden’s failed policies of globalism, green energy, and the War with Russia were thoroughly repudiated by voters throughout Europe. This portends well for making America great again, too.

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

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

Derangement Syndrome Rages Far and Wide

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The recent New York County trial against Donald Trump put Trump Derangement Syndrome on full display. Hollywood actor Robert De Niro ranted against Trump outside the courtroom so badly, including calling him a “monster,” that the National Association of Broadcasters rescinded an award it planned to give De Niro.

The trial was a “show trial” designed to influence public opinion and cripple Trump’s campaign, but has failed badly at that. The trial charade has not fooled the American public, and he broke the one-day fundraising record with small donors due to this absurd verdict.

The liberal media chants “34 counts,” without disclosing that the counts are merely cut-and-pastes of each other concerning a minor bookkeeping detail in how an expense was labeled. The court set the sentencing date for July 11, which conflicts with activities related to the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be nominated for president.

This was merely an invented crime that never would have been prosecuted against anyone other than Trump. There was no violation of any election law, and the biased judge wrongly excluded the expert on federal election law from testifying to that at trial.

Yet the unrestrained, unapologetic derangement that flails against Trump can be seen raging against other innocent victims now, too. This is a potent mix of animosity and jealousy that causes bizarre outbursts of cheap shots and misconduct toward its targets.

Professional sports are supposed to be an example of sportsmanship, but emotional attacks have spread to women's basketball where the victim there is Caitlin Clark. Like the unreasonable animus towards Trump, several other players in the league appear to hate her for just being who she is.

Who Clark is includes winning twice the national women’s college player of the year, outdrawing the NBA championship games in television audience, and being drafted #1 by the WNBA. After becoming the greatest female college basketball player ever, Clark is like the goose that laid the golden eggs in Aesop's Fable, whom all of women’s basketball should be applauding and respecting.

Clark, like Trump, represents hard work and success based on merit, and her remarkable diligence and devotion have already lifted women’s basketball enormously. Like Trump making our country great again, Clark has the potential to make women’s basketball great again (or maybe for the first time).

Yet other professional women’s basketball players have been taking cheap shots at her on the court, and even cheering each other on in doing so. On Saturday one opponent knocked her to the floor from behind, with a surprise blow that left Clark unable to defend herself, and another opposing player appeared to cheer this.

The referees, refusing to rein in the derangement syndrome, declined to assess a significant foul for this despite the team’s request for review. The perpetrator was merely assessed an away-from-the-ball common foul during the game, rather than a technical or flagrant foul.

This and other cheap shots against Caitlin Clark by other players have created a crisis. WNBA league officials so far have done nothing meaningful to punish the bad behavior toward Clark, except on Sunday in response to widespread public outrage the WNBA did belatedly recategorize this as a flagrant-1 violation.

Contrast this with the NFL, which quickly comes down hard on any player who inflicts harm on another player contrary to the rules of the game. The NFL suspends and even bans players who perpetrate cheap shots, which of course can injure other players.

But not the WNBA, which seems just fine with Caitlin Clark Derangement Syndrome. Media criticism of misconduct by women’s athletes has been rare in the past, as though it is politically incorrect to apply the same standards to female athletes that apply to male athletes.

Clark makes only $76,535 in salary a year, plus endorsements, to take this abuse, and could be earning many times that by playing in the women’s basketball league in Europe. Other American women are playing in that league now.

The liberal media runs big headlines when NFL football players sometimes misbehave, even when the misconduct is entirely off-the-field as part of their private lives. Yet only a few media outlets, such as the New York Post, hold female athletes accountable for their bad behavior.

Even liberal comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who once boycotted a Trump charity golf event because of his dislike of Trump, recently announced that he misses the “dominant masculinity” that existed in the past in American culture. A masculine culture would discredit and reject the senseless emotional outbursts.

Trump has to fight derangement syndrome every day; it’s encouraging how strongly the American public has opposed similar attacks against Caitlin Clark. Trump should invite her to the White House on January 20th.

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.