The last time we checked in on WorldNetDaily columnist Andy Schlafly, he was still raging about purported 2020 election fraud. As Donald Trump became president, he has turned into a mindless shill for him and his policies. He ranted in a Feb. 13 column that states are resisting Trump’s transphobia by bizarrely linking being transgender to slavery:
Democrat-majority states are defying President Trump on the transgender issue, and dividing our nation into half-trans and half-free. The free half are the states that protect girls’ sports from males invading as transgenders, and which protect both boys and girls against mutilating transgender surgeries.
This country endured “half-slave, half-free” until it became impossible to co-exist that way, as the half-slave portion insisted on complicity by the half-free portion until it was no longer willing to go along. President Trump has already put an end to federal workers signing their emails with pronoun commands to recipients for how they should address the senders.
On Jan. 28, Trump signed an Executive Order that commanded every federal agency “that provides research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals” to “immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”
President Trump further ordered the attorney general to “prioritize enforcement of protections against female genital mutilation.” Trump has also ended the transgender policies of our Armed Forces.
[…]Blue states including New York and Minnesota are already flatly defying Trump’s directives. Democrat New York officials have advised the many hospitals in New York City and throughout the state to continue to perform transgender surgeries on children even if that means they will lose federal funding.
Schlafly had another transgender meltdown in his Feb. 27 column:
The federal government has been sending billions in taxpayer dollars to states for their public schools, including Maine. Maine does not have to accept this money, but if it does, then it has to comply with the conditions attached just as households can place conditions on charities that receive their donations, or donate the money elsewhere.
At the recent governors’ meeting at the White House, President Trump politely asked Maine’s Gov. Janet Mills if she is “not going to comply with” his executive order protecting girls’ sports against boys viewing themselves as transgendered, as he had heard from the media. She indicated that she would not comply, and argued instead that she is “complying with state and federal law” by allowing transgendered teenagers, born as male, to play in girls’ sports.
Trump responded that “we are the federal law” in reference to how the executive authority under the Constitution is vested in the president, and how Trump had cited the federal statute enacted by Congress. Trump then continued, “You better do it, you better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
“And, by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports.” Mills interrupted Trump by brusquely saying, “See you in court,” and was photographed smiling smugly at her table.
“Good. I’ll see you in court, I look forward to that, that should be a real easy one,” said Trump. Then Trump added one of his trademark zingers that infuriates the Left, “And enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
This 57-second confrontation in which Trump rebuked the entrenched liberal Maine governor illustrated how much better Trump is than any other Republican politician. Who else would have stood up against a tough, bossy, liberal woman attorney as Trump just did?
Mills, of course, got no credit for standing up to a bossy right-wing authoritarian like Trump. But despite Schlafly’s insistence that Trump “trounce[d]” Mills on the issue, Maine eventually forced the Trump administration to restore millions of dollars in funding for a nutrition program that it had petulantly cut off to punish the state for not bowing to its transphobia.
In his March 20 column, Schlafly cheered Trump’s efforts to punish judges who don’t acquiesce to his dictatorial demands:
On Tuesday President Trump called for the impeachment of a federal judge, to which Chief Justice Roberts retorted by urging an appeal instead. Roberts is apparently panicked about the prospect of many impeachments raining down on federal judges based on shocking decisions.
The recent interference by a federal court in D.C. with President Trump’s deportation of Venezuelan gang members is an egregious overreach by the federal judiciary. Presidents, not judges, are elected to protect national security against a foreign invasion.
Impeachment is not the only option available to Trump, and Republicans in Congress to provide a check-and-balance against the federal judiciary as established by our Constitution. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton described the judiciary as the “least dangerous” branch because the other two branches decide what power to give it, and what rulings to enforce.
[…]In other words, it is entirely up to President Trump whether and how to enforce a decision by a federal court. It is also entirely up to Congress whether and how to fund federal courts, define the scope of their jurisdiction and finance the implementation of any judicial decisions.
Schlafly praised states enacting so-called “election integrity” initiatives in his March 27 column, then whined that initiative petitions are also getting on state ballots:
The Arkansas secretary of state observed that out-of-state groups having lots of money “are able to get almost any issue on Arkansas ballots.” Nearly half the states continue to be vulnerable to the misuse of their ballot initiative process by out-of-state and even foreign billionaires to enact laws.
On the fundamental issues of abortion, marijuana and gambling, liberals are enacting their agenda in predominantly conservative states by using hired petition gatherers to obtain signatures to qualify for the ballot. Then liberals outspend conservatives by 10-to-1 or more to pass these measures as new laws with a flood of television and internet advertising.
The conservative states need to reform this process, which is a relic from the Progressive Era early in the 20th century when state legislatures were overly influenced by corporate interests. The ballot initiative process was supposed to be a counterweight for the people to push back against corporate spending to enact laws in the legislatures.
Today, ballot measures have become the opposite, whereby big money by liberals is buying the laws they want and lining their own pockets by legalizing gambling and other bad behavior. Online sports gambling was legalized in Missouri last November by a margin of fewer than 3,000 votes, based on $43 million spent in support and only $9 million in opposition.
We suspect Schlafly would not be thinking the initiative process is a “relic” if it was being used to push right-wing initiatives. He concluded by cheering that one state blocked initiative petitions: “The Arkansas Supreme Court set the example last fall concerning harmful ballot initiatives. It properly excluded from the ballot both the marijuana and abortion-on-demand ballot initiatives that Missouri and Ohio allowed.”