RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/04/the-trump-hating-lefts-worst-nightmare-things-really-are-looking-up/

The economy appears to be booming, consumer confidence is rising, inflation is coming in lower, and job growth higher, than expected. Normally, we’d all be celebrating good news like this. But not when Donald Trump is sitting in the White House. Then it must be ignored or explained away.

Ever since Trump took office, we’ve been treated to a steady diet of doomsaying. His tariffs would fuel inflation. He was driving the economy toward a recession. When the Commerce Department reported a slight contraction in the first quarter – so slight that future revisions could show that the economy expanded in the first three months – the same cast of characters started shouting “See, we told you so!”

But then the data started coming in, and suddenly those voices went silent. Why? Because it’s all been “unexpected” good news.

On Monday, for example, the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank updated its GDPNow forecast – which projects quarterly economic growth in real time based on ongoing data releases. The current “nowcast,” as it’s called, shows growth in the second quarter of 4.6%, which is up from the 3.8% growth figure released last week.

The latest Consumer Price Index shows inflation in April was just 2.3%, marking the third consecutive monthly decline under Trump, and hitting a low not seen since February 2021, which, for those keeping score, was the month before Joe Biden went on his $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” spendathon.

The monthly jobs report for April came in higher than expected, with the creation of 177,000 jobs, after the March report came in significantly higher than expected. Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a “surprising” increase in the number of job openings.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/rubio-to-the-rescue/

The first four months of President Donald Trump’s second term have been a whirlwind of historic progress. From his executive actions to his reciprocal tariffs to his determination to bring peace to the world, President Trump has acted quickly to implement the Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda.

In the mission to undo the damage done by the last presidential administration, no cabinet member has been more instrumental than Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The 2016 GOP presidential candidate, who opposed Trump in the nomination campaign, and the former U.S. Senator from Florida, was unanimously confirmed by his Senate colleagues.

After witnessing Rubio’s bold moves as Secretary of State, some Democratic Senators regret their confirmation vote. At a contentious hearing last week, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told Rubio, “I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you as Secretary of State.” In response, Rubio said that his regret “confirms I’m doing a good job.”

Van Hollen is upset that Rubio is implementing the agenda the American people supported in the last election. He specifically criticized Rubio for revoking student visas, reducing foreign aid, dismantling United States Agency for International Development (USAID) programs, and deporting illegal aliens, such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the so-called “Maryland Man,” to El Salvador.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States, Rubio correctly noted, “No judge in the judicial branch can tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.” Rubio informed Van Hollen that Abrego Garcia is a “human trafficker” and a “gang banger.” He also castigated Van Hollen for having “a margarita with” Abrego Garcia during his El Salvador junket.

Along with fiercely defending the President’s agenda in congressional hearings, media interviews and in negotiations with leaders of foreign countries, Rubio has been adding to his already significant responsibilities. Currently, Rubio may be the one person holding more jobs than billionaire businessman Elon Musk.

As his spokesperson Tammy Bruce said, Rubio “has worn several hats from day one.” Along with his primary position as Secretary of State, Rubio is serving as the interim National Security Advisor and supervises both the National Archives and USAID.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/06/bumbling_biden_was_still_a_tyrant.html

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard continues to declassify documents that show how the Biden administration defined political opponents as “Domestic Violent Extremists” (DVEs).  In a December 13, 2021, intelligence product entitled, “DVEs and Foreign Analogues May React Violently to COVID-19 Mitigation Mandates,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterterrorism Center created a framework for investigating critics of Biden’s COVID policies and labeling them potential domestic terrorists.  

The report claims that “anti government or anti authority” Americans see “COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as evidence of government overreach” and that “QAnon” has used these “prominent narratives” to encourage violence.  Dangerous thoughtcrimes “include the belief that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties and livelihoods, or are designed to start a new social or political order.”

This Intel designation encapsulates so much of what is wrong with the federal government today.  

First, it once again frames anti-government Americans as a national threat.  Conversely, the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights all recognize government as an inherent threat to Americans.  

When we celebrate the Fourth of July next month, we will be honoring the patriotic acts of our political forebears and the many sacrifices they bore so that we might be free.  Free from what?  Oppressive government!  Our nation was founded on the truth that government is an enduring threat to individual life, property, and liberty.  Being anti-government is to be American; bowing down to government is to reject the founding principles of this nation!  

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/02/who-really-are-the-lawless-and-the-dictatorial/

The left is in its usual sanctimonious but schizophrenic mood.

The media claims daily that the Trump administration has usurped power. It is supposedly destroying democracy. It tramples on the rule of law and thus has created a virtual dictatorship.

Yet at the same time, Democrats high-five the most recent district court judge who has put a stop to the current Trump executive orders—which the Trump administration abides by as it files appeals.

There are two clear conclusions from the flurry of the lower-court liberal justices’ orders: 1) Trump has obeyed their record number of interventions as the appeals go forward; and 2) rarely in the history of the republic has a pool of some 300-400 left-wing district judges exercised such nationwide control over the executive branch and indeed the entire nation.

Yet consider the array of double standards.

Donald Trump is accused of improperly dictating to private elite universities who choose to apply for and receive federal funds. At least, lower court cherry-picked justices predictably rule so.

But please spare us the district courts’ sermons on truth, justice, and the American way, given their lodestar is often ideology, not principled adherence to the law.

After all, Trump is only following the precedents of the Obama administration. With legal impunity, it had threatened fines and worse to public and private universities that did not fully implement Title 9 to Obama’s subjective standards.

Indeed, the Obama Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, in an unconstitutional fashion, habitually threatened colleges and universities (“Dear Colleague…”) with a cutoff of federal funds if they did not comply with its weird version of addressing charges of campus sexual harassment. For the “constitutional lawyer” Obama, gone was the American creed that Americans accused on campus were innocent unless proven guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

For the Harvard Law graduate Obama, gone were even past administrative rules that required “clear and convincing evidence” to convict the accused.

Instead, it ordered campuses to adopt its new Orwellian standard that a mere “preponderance of the evidence” might find the targeted guilty—or risk losing federal funds.

Hillsdale College long ago declined federal subsidies and grants, only to be a target of petty, even spiteful, federal harassment from both the Obama and Biden administrations.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/02/trumps-ratings-edge-higher-as-good-news-eclipses-negative-media-coverage-ibd-tipp-poll/

Presidents rise or fall based on what voters think of them, at least when it comes to political clout and influence. How is President Donald Trump doing? So far, so good, but there is still room for improvement, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll suggests.

While Trump is in only the fifth month of his second term, Americans feel much more favorable about him right now than than they did about former President Joe Biden in his final month in office, the June I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

In the latest poll, taken from May 28-30, I&I/TIPP once again asked voters: “Overall, is your opinion of Donald Trump generally favorable, generally unfavorable, or are you not familiar enough to say one way or the other?” (The poll of 1,395 adults has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points).

The answer: He splits the electorate pretty much down the middle when it comes to favorability, with 45% awarding him “favorable” marks for his term so far, and an equivalent 45% calling his service so far “unfavorable.” So, on net, Trump is even. Among the rest, 7% said they were “not familiar enough to say,” while another 3% said they were “not sure.”

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/31/democrats-and-men/

Since last November, Democrats and their friends in the media have spent a great deal of time wondering what they can do to win back male voters. Now they’re prepared to spend a great deal of money to help them figure it out. The “gender gap” in American politics was traditionally about Republicans’ inability to win over a majority of women voters, but this imbalance has more than evened out over the last few election cycles. Today, the Democrats’ struggle to win male voters—and young male voters, in particular—is as pronounced—if not more so—than their opponents’ struggle with women. Some of them, at least, would like to know why and would like to spend $20 million of their donors’ money in the process.

The explanations and consequent solutions offered so far range from the seemingly practical to the hopeless to the head-scratching. One might think that $20 million would buy something more insightful than this, but then, this is the same party that triumphantly chose Tim Walz as its vice-presidential nominee, fully expecting him to be the answer to their gender gap problem. Or in other words, don’t hold your breath.

In reality, the odds that the contemporary Democratic party will be able to win back men, now or in the foreseeable future, are vanishingly small. The party, as it is currently constituted, lacks both the will and the ability to make the changes that would be necessary to do so. What I mean by this is that the contemporary Democratic party is built on a handful of foundational notions that are, by and large, incompatible with the goal of appealing to men.

To start, historically, biologically, and evolutionarily, men need a purpose. That may sound trite or even sexist, but it’s nevertheless true. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that men need an externally imposed purpose. Whatever the case, women, by definition, have a purpose, namely to create and nurture new life. While men are necessary to create life as well, their role is, obviously, not as involved or enduring. Once upon a time—which is to say from the dawn of history until about 50 or 60 years ago—man’s purpose, therefore, was to provide for and protect the family, to enable the nurturing of new life as safely and successfully as possible. There is an evolutionary reason that men are, generally, bigger and stronger than women—because they had to be able to hunt and work for food and defend their loved ones from danger.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/01/what-is-american-conservatism/

“To be deceived about the truth of things and so to harbor untruth in the soul is a thing no one would consent to.”
— Plato, The Republic

Let me start with the genus. What is conservatism? The answer? It is cheerful allegiance to the truth. This is especially true of conservatism’s American variant. Conservatism in America has some distinctive features, traceable mostly to two things: the Founders’ vision of limited government supporting individual liberty and the historical accidents of newness, on the one hand, and geographical amplitude and separateness on the other.

Although it may sometimes seem that conservatives are constitutionally averse to cheerfulness, writing works with titles such as Leviathan, The Decline of the West, The Waste Land, and Slouching Towards Gomorrah, by habit and disposition, I submit, conservatives tend, as a species, to be less gloomy than—than what? What shall we call those who occupy a position opposite that of conservatives? Not liberals, surely, since the people and policies that are called “liberal” are so often conspicuously illiberal, i.e., opposed to freedom and all its works.

Indeed, when it comes to the word “liberal,” Russell Kirk came close to the truth when he observed that he was conservative because he was a liberal, that is, a partisan of ordered liberty and the habits and institutions that nurture it. (Is that another definition of conservatism?) In any event, whatever the opposite of conservatives should be called—perhaps John Fonte’s marvelous coinage “transnational progressives” is best, though the old standby “Leftists” will do—they tend to be gloomy, partly, I suspect, because of disappointed utopian ambitions.

Conservatives also tend to enjoy a more active and enabling sense of humor than leftists. Has anyone ever accused Elizabeth Warren of having a sense of humor? How about Rachel Maddow? Or Jamie Raskin?

The nineteenth-century English essayist Walter Bagehot once observed that “the essence of Toryism is enjoyment.” What he meant, I think, was summed up by the author of Genesis when that sage observed that “God made the world and saw that it was good.” Conservatives differ from progressives in many ways, but one important way is in the quantity of cheerfulness and humor they deploy. Not that their assessment of their fellows is more sanguine.

On the contrary, conservatives tend to be cheerful because they do not regard imperfection as a moral affront. Being soberly realistic about mankind’s susceptibility to improvement, they are as suspicious of utopian schemes as they are appreciative of present blessings.

Conservatives, that is to say, are realists. Like Plato, they recoil from the prospect of being fundamentally out of touch with reality.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-executive-orders-work-productivity-infrastructure-covid-masks

Wait around long enough, and a Trump executive order will likely come rolling out of the White House addressing a pet peeve or what would have been a pet peeve, had one known. In the interest of speeding up the Trumpian reform process, however, herewith are two proposed EO’s, based on close analysis of the extant orders. They are not exhaustive. Readers may have other needed EO’s in mind.

EXECUTIVE ORDER ENDING ILLEGAL EMPLOYEE ANTI-HARASSMENT TRAINING AND RESTORING AMERICAN PRODUCTIVITY.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose. A bedrock principle of my administration is to make America productive again. Yet every year, America’s hardworking employees are subjected to hours of wasteful anti-harassment and anti-bias training. The only function of this immoral training is to provide employment to the graduates of unlawful women’s and black studies programs. These divisive training sessions presume that Americans are guilty of harassment and bias simply because of their race and sex. No evidence has been presented that America’s managers and workers are denying opportunities to their fellow workers because of prejudice, microaggressions, white privilege, rape culture, heteronormativity, ableism, neurohomogeneity, or the patriarchy. Nevertheless, influential institutions of American society, including the federal government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education require stultifying anti-bias and anti-harassment training. American dynamism is put on hold as employees click hopelessly through PowerPoint slides on bystander intervention, definitions of sex discrimination, and options for filing discrimination complaints.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/29/democrats-and-their-dei-albatrosses/

A few Democrat officeholders, activists, and pundits are finally coming to their senses that their brand is toxic to a majority of the American people.

The Biden administration killed what was left of it in a number of ways.

First, it serially lied to Americans about the cognitive decline and cancerous condition of President Joe Biden, both while in and after office.

Only when caught did the complicit media fess up that the Biden inner circle serially misled the American people about Biden’s inability to fulfill the duties of the presidency.

Second, left-wing politicos used Biden as a waxen effigy. His job was to pose as a “moderate” cover to push through the most radical and unpopular agenda in the last half century.

Only that way could “Old Joe Biden from Scranton” and his backroom handlers ram down the throat of the American people unpopular policies that nearly wrecked the country: hyperinflation and $7 trillion in new debt, weaponization of the government, and partisan lawfare, an open border and 12 million illegal aliens, a racialist DEI commissariat, a crackpot Green New Deal, defunding the police, biological men competing in girls’ sports, and two theater-wide wars abroad.

Third, without either a functional president or viable initiatives, the new hard-left Democrats sought to brand Donald Trump as “Hitler” and half the country who supported him as “fascists.”

For nearly nine years, the Democrats launched one failed hoax after another on the American people: “Russian collusion,” “laptop disinformation,” and the lying so-called “51 intelligence authorities.” They proved quite willing to undermine the rule of law by manipulating the court system in efforts to destroy their bogeyman, Donald Trump.

Never had the American people seen a political party engineer 93 bogus indictments of a rival candidate and ex-president. Two dozen states tried to take Trump off their presidential ballots. And the Biden Department of Justice sicced an FBI SWAT team to barge into Trump’s home.