RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/05/from-one-fake-left-wing-hysteria-to-the-next/

The decade-old age of fables like Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, or the pangolin/bat cause of COVID is not over; it is just hitting midstream.

For much of April, amid stock downturns, in the classical paranoid style, we were assured by the Wall Street Journal news reporters and the liberal press that Trump had either a) guaranteed an inevitable recession, b) engineered a losing trade war he likely regretted, c) crashed the stock market, d) lost his once majority favorability ratings, e) mostly had a failed first 100 days, or f) all of the above.

Some of us thought these diagnoses and prognoses were absurd. How in mediis rebus, during a radical counterrevolution never quite seen before, could anyone issue such bleak predictions? Would these same observers have said the U.S. was doomed to lose World War II after the bleak first five months of mostly failure in the Pacific, or North Africa, after the utter U.S. army disaster at the Kasserine Pass?

When the Biden administration compiled two consecutive quarters of negative GDP—the supposedly classic definition of a recession—most of these same pundits assured us that the data was meaningless and irrelevant. The same left-wing media throng insisted Biden was in his cognitive prime until hours before he abdicated from the ticket under pressure. They swore to us that Robert Mueller’s “walls were closing in” on Donald Trump, who would legitimately go to jail, buried by 93 lawfare indictments.

As for their polls showing that Trump was all but through after three months in office, almost all of them were not just off in the 2016 presidential race, but again in 2020. And given the chronic temptation to warp polls to create Democratic momentum and fundraising, they rigged their polls yet again in 2024—even when they knew in disgrace that they were ruining their brand. A former Harris campaign official just admitted that internal polls never showed Harris ahead—even as the majority of polls predicted her victory.

So why would anyone believe any of these people? Take the now-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Its recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll assured us that 45 percent of the public gave Trump an F for his first 100 days, with only 42 percent expressing approval of his job so far.

But this is the same bunch that also assured us in its final authoritative 2024 election poll, on the very eve before the voting, that Kamala Harris would win the race by 4 points—a lead proverbially “outside the margin of error.” (The next day, she lost the popular vote by 1.5 percent or 2,284,952 votes and the Electoral College by 312-226). The public broadcasting polling partnership was off 5.5 points, perhaps suggesting that it wished to aid the Harris campaign more than either adhering to professional and ethical norms or fearing to lose what little was left of its reputation.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5277881-trump-china-tariffs/

President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, are engaged in a monumental struggle over tariffs and trade — will Barbie determine the outcome?  

Xi is betting that Americans are too spoiled to abandon the cheap imported goods — like the iconic Barbie doll — that have filled the shelves of Walmart and Costco for decades. Trump is betting that China’s economy will swoon under the burden of tariffs and that U.S. companies will prove more agile than expected in shifting output to other countries. 

Trump acknowledged the risk of his tariff war at a recent town hall. “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally.”  

Though almost 80 percent of the toys sold in the U.S. are made in China, some makers, like Barbie producer Mattel, have been quietly moving production out of China. Mattel said earlier this year that only 40 percent of its products will be made in China this year, down from 50 percent last year. And Mattel is not alone.

Nonetheless, if tariffs on Chinese goods remain at 145 percent, many toy prices will almost certainly head higher. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/05/05/republican-lawmakers-fiddle-as-economy-starts-to-burn/

In the time that President Donald Trump has issued more than 140 executive orders, what has Congress been doing?

Anyone?… Anyone?

Next to nothing. So far, it has managed to send just five bills to Trump’s desk for signature, a slower pace than any Congress in modern times.

Five. And none of them delivered on Trump’s agenda.

One was the non-controversial Laken Riley Act, which passed by large margins in both chambers.

Another was a continuing resolution to keep the government from shutting down, which was needed only because Congress failed to do its job of passing appropriations bills, like it’s supposed to.

The other three were bills blocking last-minute Biden regulations from going into effect, one of which would have required oil and natural gas producers to map the ocean floor in search of shipwrecks before they start drilling. Not exactly “Golden Age” stuff.

But that big, beautiful bill that Trump has been calling for? Well, here’s now NBC News described it last week:

Republicans are already hitting some snags as they begin the work of crafting a bill for President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda. And they haven’t even made some of their hardest decisions yet.

Begin the work? It’s May, and they are just beginning the work of crafting this bill? And Republicans in the House say getting a reconciliation bill to the Senate is unlikely to happen before Memorial Day?

https://www.aol.com/kellyanne-conway-democrats-disastrous-first-090052727.html

As pundits, pollsters, and op-ed writers turn to their assessment of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days — an “artificial metric,” White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles once said — it seems fitting to examine what the Democrats have done (and failed to do) over the same period.

The Democratic Party is in complete disarray. With only 27% saying they view their own party positively, the Democrats are suffering their lowest positive rating in NBC tracking in 35 years. They continue to openly blame, name and shame each other for lying to the nation about Joe Biden’s ability to function as a successful president (and frankly, Kamala Harris’ ability, too), for not stopping Donald J. Trump from winning a second term, and for being a rudderless, leaderless, visionless mess since.

With GOP control of the House, Senate and the White House, Democrats are the party out of power. Yet they are also the party out of touch with most Americans, out of excuses as to why they lost last fall, out of reasons why core Democratic constituencies that went for President Trump in 2024 should give Democrats another look, and often out of their minds in the hateful rhetoric they use.

Lately, the causes and characters they champion include hulking men in girls’ sports and a Salvadorean national “Maryland man” with gang affiliations, whose wife filed abuse charges against him. Because nothing says “we care about women” quite like stuntman and sometime Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who has dishonored the memory of constituent Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was raped and murdered in his state by an illegal immigrant, but hightailed it to El Salvador to whine about “due process” for someone whose wife detailed multiple violent assaults.

Van Hollen has been awkward, but not alone. Congressional Democrats like Ayanna Pressley, who have done nothing to prevent or punish anti-Semitism on college campuses, have glorified antisemitic protesters, visited them in ICE detention centers, and referred to them as “political prisoners.”

Same with Teslas. Democrats want to force us all to drive electric vehicles, “EVs,” but not if Elon Musk’s company produced it. Those can be destroyed by arsonists.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/05/03/despite-what-youve-heard-trumps-budget-doesnt-slash-sending-it-barely-trims-it/

President Donald Trump did something extremely rare in Washington on Friday. He offered a budget plan that proposes actual, honest-to-goodness cuts in spending next year. Which helps explain the hysterical reaction from the usual suspects.

Normally, White House budget proposals claim to be cutting spending when all they are doing is slowing the growth in spending. Or they promise spending cuts far down the road while boosting outlays in the short term.

But the budget outline Trump released Friday does none of that. In sticking with Trump’s “revolution of common sense,” when it says it cuts spending, it cuts spending – meaning spending less next year than this year.

Trump wants to reduce spending on domestic programs by $163 billion next year – which would be almost 23% less than the federal government will spend this year on things such as education, the environment, energy, transportation, foreign aid.

So, it’s not surprising to see headlines that scream that Trump’s is a “scorched earth” plan that “slashes spending,” makes “drastic cuts,” and – our favorite headline from the New York Times – proposes “Slashing Domestic Spending to the Lowest Level of the Modern Era.”

Right now, reporters are scouring the country for examples they can trot out – or invent – of how these spending cuts will harm children, gut scientific research and throw people on the streets.

But, while we commend Trump for proposing deep cuts this year – and for laying out in plain English what he wants to cut and why – let’s not get carried away. What he’s proposing is far from “drastic.”

If Trump got his way – which is doubtful considering how weak-kneed Republicans in Congress are when it comes to spending cuts – his plan would simply remove the massive increase in spending that happened during and after COVID.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/05/02/mining-our-own-business/

Rare earth elements are crucial to our modern existence, as well as our advanced defense systems. China, America’s primary supplier of these metals, has restricted exports of rare earths into the U.S. in retaliation for the president’s tariffs on Chinese exports into the country. There’s no reason to panic, though. There’s a way to work around the problem, and it doesn’t require a minerals deal with Ukraine.

Rare earth elements are needed to make our cellphones, computer hard drives, flat-screen monitors and televisions, as well as life-saving medical equipment. They are in fact “indispensable metals in electronics manufacturing.” Without them, modern society simply cannot survive. Even renewable energy sources, so precious to green zealots, need rare earths.  

There are also “significant defense applications,” says the U.S. Geological Survey, including “electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems.”

Despite their importance to our economy and security, our “leaders” have put us in an awkward position. China provides the U.S. with 70% of the rare earth compounds we buy from abroad.

As their name implies, supplies are scarce. because they can’t be found “in high concentrations in the earth’s crust” and when they are discovered, the process to separate them from other resources is typically arduous. 

But the process is not beyond the U.S.

This country could have – and should have – been mining large volumes of its own rare earths. But environmental zealots have blocked mining efforts, including the planned Pebble Mine in Alaska, “home to at least 70 known occurrences of rare earth elements.” It was shut down in 2014 even before the partnership applied for federal approval. The Environmental Protection Agency “decided to kill this project before any science had been done,” Tom Collier, who was the project’s chief executive, told John Stossel. 

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/01/the-trump-counterrevolution-and-the-moral-ledger/

Despite the media hysteria, Trump’s counterrevolution remains on course.

Its ultimate fate will probably rest with the state of the economy by the November 2026 midterm elections. But its success also hinges on accomplishing what is right and long overdue—and then making such reforms quietly, compassionately, and methodically.

No country can long endure without sovereignty and security—or with 10 to 12 million illegal immigrants crossing the border and half a million criminal foreign nationals roaming freely.

The prior administration found that it was easy to destroy the border and welcome the influx. But it is far harder for its successor to restore security, find those who broke the law, and insist on legal-only immigration. Trump is on the right side of all these issues and making substantial progress.

Everyone knew that a $2 trillion budget deficit, a $37 trillion national debt, and a $1.2 trillion trade deficit in goods were ultimately unsustainable.

Yet all prior politicians of the 21st century winced at the mere thought of reducing debts and deficits, given that it proved much easier just to print and spread around federal money. As long as the Trump administration dutifully cuts the budget, sends its regrets to displaced federal employees, seeks to expand private sector reemployment, and quietly presses ahead, it retains the moral high ground.

The elite universities have long hidden things from the American people that otherwise would have lost them all public support.

They deliberately sought to neuter Supreme Court rulings banning race-based preferences by stealthily continuing their often-segregated policies on campuses, from admissions and hiring to dorms and graduations.

They have taken billions of dollars from autocracies, such as communist China and Qatar. And they have partnered abroad with their foreign illiberal institutions and then disguised their quid pro quo subservience.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/david-horowitz-r-i-p/

On behalf of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, we are very saddened to announce the passing of the Center’s founder, David Horowitz. After a lengthy battle with cancer, David passed yesterday at the age of 86.

The Freedom Center’s founder and guiding force was a relentless conservative warrior who survived a previous brush with death (chronicled in his book Mortality and Faith), confrontations with the Black Panthers, campus radicals, government investigations, death threats, and hate campaigns, some led by his former friends and allies, without ever considering giving up or letting up. Nothing short of the end that comes for us all could silence his voice. He continued writing, working, and steering the Center to the very last; his final article, “The Biggest Lie of All,” appeared earlier this month.