Donald Trump just accomplished what his Republican predecessor George W. Bush refused to do: make understanding of English a requirement for truck drivers’ licenses. In 2002 Phyllis Schlafly urged GWB to repeal Clinton’s extension of commercial licenses to non-English-speaking truckers, but Bush refused to act.

Clinton opened the southern border to Mexican truckers to carry long loads, potentially including drugs, deep into the U.S. without knowing English. Not only did this take jobs away from Americans and create havoc at checkpoints, but it also resulted in horrific highway accidents that Phyllis wrote about two decades ago.

Trump just delivered again for American workers and highway safety: truck drivers must understand English to drive big rigs across America. In the split-second decisions made by truckers on congested highways, they need to understand road signs without difficulty.

Road signs are commonly in English, and the driver of an 18-wheeler must be able to read what he sees. If there is a shortage of English-speaking drivers, then wages should increase to attract more, rather than endangering other travelers with truck drivers who cannot read the signs.

On Monday, Trump signed an Executive Order stating that truck drivers “should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers. Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.”

“Every day, truckers perform the demanding and dangerous work of transporting the Nation’s goods to businesses, customers, and communities safely, reliably, and efficiently,” Trump stated. In March Trump also made English our official language, which other Republicans failed to do for decades.

To the dismay of liberals opposed to English as our official language, the president of an association of 150,000 truckers immediately applauded Trump’s Executive Order. Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer stated, “Basic English skills are essential for reading critical road signs, understanding emergency instructions, and interacting with law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, Democrat-appointed federal judges in California continue to drive the wrong way on immigration-related issues. San Francisco federal Judge William Orrick, known for spending years pushing the abortion industry agenda against the young man David Daleiden for exposing its alleged trafficking in fetal tissue, recently ordered Trump not to withhold funds from sanctuary cities.

On Trump’s first day he signed an Executive Order commanding that incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stop the flow of federal taxpayer funds to sanctuary cities that defy federal law by harboring illegal aliens. The unlawfulness of these cities results in heinous crimes against innocent Americans.

“Here we are again,” Judge Orrick brazenly declared in issuing an injunction last Friday against Trump to keep the gravy train flowing to many cities that sued in his courtroom, including faraway Santa Fe, New Mexico. Numerous cities picked this San Francisco venue to sue because its judicial bench is composed nearly entirely of Democrat appointees.

But an appeal by the Trump administration will go immediately to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, where Trump appointed 10 judges during his first term out of 29 active judges today. The 9th Circuit is no longer the leftist paradise it once was, and even Democrat-appointed judges have already reined in a nationwide anti-Trump injunction emanating from Seattle.

Democrat-appointed Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle blocked Trump’s suspension of the refugee program with a nationwide injunction in February. But on appeal to the 9th Circuit, a 2-1 Democrat majority stayed most of that by allowing Trump’s suspension to go into effect against all refugees who did not already have confirmed travel tickets by January 20, when Trump was inaugurated and issued his Executive Order.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Trump’s ban on travel from seven specific countries during his first administration, in a lawsuit liberals filed in Democrat-dominated Hawaii. The Supreme Court confirmed that the president has broad authority over matters related to foreign policy and national security, in which courts should rarely interfere.

Almost immediately after Trump began issuing these Executive Orders upon his inauguration, the crisis at our southern border evaporated. News photos of long lines of migrants have disappeared, and migrants are staying in their native countries where they should remain.

The same liberals who complained about Trump separating families during his first term now whine that children are being deported with their mothers. At her mother’s request, a 2-year-old child born in Louisiana was sent back to Honduras with her mother as she was being deported, and the child was not given a hearing on the issue.

Trump officials acted properly in keeping this family together as much as possible, and federal courts should not try to act like family courts when issues of deporting illegal aliens with children arise.

A new report posted at Fox News, based on comments from DOGE employees during an interview with Jesse Watters, reveals the “most outrageous” ways those on the taxpayers’ payroll wasted tax money.

President Donald Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency when he took office, and officials there have reported cutting at least $160 billion in waste, fraud and abuse.

During Trump’s first 100 days.

DOGE chief Elon Musk and his team joined Watters, and revealed that the U.S. Institute for Peace had tried to pay Mohammad Qasem Halimi $132,000 by contract.

The trouble is he is a former member of the Taliban, and was detained by the U.S. and held at Bagram Air Base for a year beginning Jan. 2, 2002. The report noted he held several positions in Afghanistan’s government.

A staff member told Watters, “A small agency called the United States Institute of Peace is definitely the agency we’ve had the most fight at. We actually went into the agency and found they had loaded guns inside their headquarters — Institute for Peace. So by far, the least peaceful agency that we’ve worked with, ironically. Additionally, we found that they were spending money on things like private jets, and they even had a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban. This is real. We don’t encounter that in most agencies.”

Also there was some $200 billion spent by the nation’s schools, from COVID-19 relief funds, on things like trips to a Las Vegas hotel and the purchase of an ice cream truck.

The report said, “Granite School District in Utah spent their COVID-relief funds on $86,000 in hotel rooms for an educational conference at Caesars Palace, a ritzy Las Vegas casino, while Santa Ana Unified in California spent $393,000 to rent out a Major League Baseball stadium, according to a report by Parents Defending Education and shared by DOGE.”

It was a California district that bought the ice cream truck.

Then, too, there was the $20 million “Sesame Street” in Iraq funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, a bureaucracy shut down by DOGE.

“Improper payments” by multiple agencies cost taxpayers $162 billion, the report said, with three quarters of that concentrated in three Department of Health and Human Services Medicare programs; Medicaid, the Department of the Treasury’s earned income tax credit; the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and the Small Business Administration’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund.

Hundreds of millions in spending planned for DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, social agenda points also have been cut.

Some 400 “wasteful” DEI grants through the U.S. National Science Foundation alone, now canceled, saved $223 million.

The Department of Education already had canceled more than $100 million in grants to DEI training.