RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/05/08/defund-the-united-nations/

The United Nations is running short of cash. This is not a crisis but an opportunity. Please rid us of this meddlesome, venal and baleful organization.

The Economist reports that “internal modeling” at the U.N. “suggests that the year-end cash deficit will, without cuts, probably blow out to $1.1 billion, leaving it “without money to pay salaries and suppliers by September.”

Apparently “some members are paying their bills late and others not at all” and it is the U.S. and China that “are pushing it to the brink of financial collapse.”

Who says the U.S. and Beijing have no common interests?

Two weeks into the second Trump administration, the White House announced it was considering withdrawing the country from, and ending funding for, three U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

“UNRWA has reportedly been infiltrated by members of groups long designated by the secretary of state as foreign terrorist organizations,” says the White House, “and UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.” 

Meanwhile, “UNESCO has demonstrated failure to reform itself, has continually demonstrated anti-Israel sentiment over the past decade” and has shown that it will not “reform itself.”

The U.S. is also quitting the U.N. Human Rights Council, which it has done once before, in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term. The misnamed Human Rights Council “has protected human rights abusers by allowing them to use the organization to shield themselves from scrutiny,” says the White House.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/05/doge_is_doing_the_clean_up_leftists_can_t_stand.html

In this allegorical scenario, Honey and Hank moved into a cozy home in a small community in New England 30 years ago.  The next day, their neighbor, Irene, brings over a hot, homemade casserole to welcome them to the neighborhood.

Within minutes, Honey and Irene “connect” in a phenomenon known as human chemistry.  They just seem to “get” each other.  And as their relationship evolves, they learn that they are on the same page on just about everything: raising kids, favorite foods, must-see TV programs, Mommy-and-Me classes, even the crocheting and knitting that their grandmothers taught them.  And each of them has three children, with two of them having the same name!

As luck would have it, their husbands also hit it off and have quite a lot in common, the biggest that both are on-the-road salesmen.

Over the years, the couples become so close that they vacation and celebrate birthdays and holidays together.  Honey and Irene even exchange house keys and list each other as emergency contacts on medical forms.

All good…for 30 years!

Uh-Oh…

Then, one day, Honey gets a phone call from her bank manager, Mr. Hervey, requesting that she and Hank come in for a sit-down.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/07/hyperbole-lies-and-delusions/

CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s speech in New Hampshire last week was greeted by the media as yet another stirring call to arms for the rudderless Democratic Party.

“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption – but I am now,” Pritzker thundered. “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.”

Republicans protested that the governor came close to inciting political violence – and they have a point, given the attempts to assassinate Donald Trump, the dangerous attacks on Tesla, and the near-kidnapping of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

However, what Pritzker had to say in his speech before channeling Maxine Waters’ infamous call to harass Republicans should not be overlooked. It raises an important question: Is Pritzker delusional, a liar, or merely hyperbolic?

Hyperbole, lies, and delusions are all forms of falsehoods, but of different magnitudes. The first are exaggerated claims not meant to be taken literally. Trump himself is no stranger to this oratorical device. Lies are exaggerations or falsehoods the speaker wants others to believe – and, while shameful, are a too-frequent feature of modern political discourses. Delusions are false beliefs at odds with observable reality.

Jerry Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” is an example of hyperbolic name calling. Seinfeld and his audience understood it was an exaggeration so grotesque that it was funny. No one thought the soup guy was actually a member of the SS. Jussie Smollett’s claim that MAGA bros assaulted him was a lie, albeit a calculated, elaborate, and harmful hoax. The Salem witch trials were the terrible consequence of a mass delusion.

So, is Pritzker channeling Seinfeld, Smollett, or Cotton Mather?

“It’s wrong to snatch a person off the street and ship them to a foreign gulag with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law,” Pritzker said.

“Standing for the idea that the government doesn’t have the right to kidnap you without due process is arguably the most effective campaign slogan in history,” he said before adding, “Today it’s an immigrant with a tattoo, tomorrow it’s a citizen whose Facebook post annoys Donald Trump.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21597/ve-day-national-holiday

I was just a young boy when World War II ended, but I can still remember the enormous burst of elation in my Brooklyn neighborhood when it was announced on May 8, 1945 that Germany had surrendered. We knew that Imperial Japan was still a tough and dangerous adversary, but no one knew that three months and two atomic bombs later, the war would be brought to an immediate end.

As we approach the 80th anniversary of the conclusion of World War II, we are morally compelled to reflect on a seminal conflict that took over 70 million lives. We need to memorialize that enormous loss while appreciating that it reshaped the global order then, and continues to impact us today and far into the future.

President Donald J. Trump is correct in stating that the end of this conflict is so important it deserves to be observed by this nation every year.

His comments recognize the sad reality that the final frontline witnesses to this war are departing, transforming our relationship with this historical period from one of personal recollections to the documents written by historians. This irreparable loss requires us to safeguard those first-person stories and, equally important, to impart the war’s lessons to a new generation of Americans, many of whom remain sadly ignorant of even the most basic facts about World War II.

While the focus has traditionally been viewed through the experiences of Europeans and Americans, we need to appreciate that the war impacted people across Northern Africa, Asia and the Pacific. It created a United Nations organization that is still struggling to be relevant and effective as an honest peacekeeping force. Postwar, the United States assumed the role of economic global superpower, a trust it continues to this day.

As I remember the Brooklyn celebrations of Victory in Europe (VE Day), some might say, “Why continue to commemorate a conflict that should now be consigned to the bookshelf?” Because it reminds our nation of the sacrifices required to defend our freedoms and how missteps, errors of judgment, and national unpreparedness can lead to catastrophe.