RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/10/the-joe-biden-riots/

The National Guard was called in to California to protect law enforcement officers who are executing legitimate operations from the feral mobs. Had the previous president fulfilled his constitutional duty, as he promised he would when he took the oath of office, the spasm of violence over illegal immigrant arrests would have never happened, and President Donald Trump would have never had to make that call.

The scenes in Los Angeles are disturbing. An assortment of thugs, screeching harridans, and nothing-else-to-do troublemakers have been blocking and physically confronting officers, hurling bricks and rocks at them, setting fire to private property, destroying taxpayer-owned property, taking over streets, looting, and terrorizing businesses.

Protests? An exercise in free speech? It feels like an insurrection. Or maybe an invasion, since some of the agitators have waved foreign flags. Or an attempted blue massacre. Whatever the terminology, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass admits that if the administration weren’t enforcing the law, there would have been no “disorder.”

Andy Ngo, who has for years documented violent mob behavior (and been a victim of it), sees what many fear, yet some (let’s call them Democrats) want.

“If the political violence continues in Los Angeles,” he says, “it will be used to galvanize and inspire far-left extremists and Antifa cells across the country to incite anti-government insurrections in different cities. What we are witnessing now is almost exactly what happened five years ago. The same networks and militants are involved. It is their same playbook.”

The lawlessness has already spread to San Francisco, where nearly 150 have been arrested and two officers hurt. The police said some protesters “became violent and began to commit crimes.”

https://lizpeek.com/daily-rant/dont-bet-against-america-why-u-s-growth-still-beats-europe-and-china/?utm_source=newsletter.lizpeek.com&utm_

The big investment (and political) story of late suggests that the U.S. has lost its way, all because of President Trump. The administration’s “chaotic” trade policies and the U.S. fiscal picture, pundits tell us, are driving investors to send money elsewhere. American exceptionalism, we are told, is on the way out.

The Economist, for instance, posits that the U.S. is falling behind in the global race. But – spoiler alert – they’re struggling to win the argument.

Case in point: recently one of their writers, Stanley Pignal, head of the magazine’s Brussels bureau, wrote an amusing piece about Europe titled “The Unbearable Self-Indulgence of Europe.”

He sums up the European mindset thus: “The world is going to hell, meaningful economic growth is a long-forgotten phenomenon, and by the way what are your plans for summer?” What does Pignal think should keep Europeans up at night? War, of course, and Trump (he may be a realist but he’s still works for the Economist) and also, “its big companies are also-rans and the continent’s population is shrinking for the first time since the plague seven centuries ago.”

In short, “Europeans know the global race for economic supremacy is lost.” Why? Because “the continent’s business model endures: it is a third poorer than America, works a third less, and is a lot more tanned at the end of August.”

Meanwhile, last Friday cousin publication the Financial Times sounded the alarm: “Big investors lose faith in American exceptionalism,” saying concerns about US deficits and trade policies have caused a “sell-off in the dollar and left Wall Street stocks lagging behind European rivals”. The author points out that after 15 years of outperformance that has driven US markets higher, big investors have been shifting funds overseas. Why? Partly because Germany has decided to spend a boatload of money on infrastructure and defense.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/los-angeles-riots-trump-deportation-national-guard-immigration

Los Angeles is burning. Earlier this year, seasonal fires ripped through the Southern California city, but now, the fires are entirely manmade. In response to the Trump administration’s deportation policy, left-wing activists and opportunistic rioters have taken to the streets to vandalize property, incinerate automobiles, and assault law enforcement officers. The images emerging from the city are shocking: thugs hurling rocks from an overpass onto police; men spinning motorcycles around burning debris; a masked, shirtless rioter waving a Mexican flag atop a burned-out autonomous car.

In short, the Left is giving President Trump all the visual symbolism he needs to advance his immigration agenda. Most Americans see chaos in the name of a foreign flag and find it repellent. Though Trump’s language about a migrant “invasion” has sometimes been dismissed as hyperbolic, it seems that the Left is intent on turning it into a material reality.

The question: How should the president respond? Many on the right may feel an instinctual reaction to “send in the troops.” While this concern for law and order is natural and merited, it must be pursued in a way that maximizes the chance for success and minimizes the chance for blowback. As the president considers his options, he might keep in mind a number of strategic points that, if implemented, will increase his leverage in the fight for large-scale deportations.

The administration must deny the Left a strong visual counterargument. It’s easy to see how scenes of militarization, abuse of demonstrators, or a violent death could reverse public sympathies and present the administration as abusing its authority. The language of politics is visual—and therefore emotional, which means that a single mistake can reverse the flow of opinion and imperil the president’s immigration agenda. Left-wing tacticians have trained their foot soldiers to bait law enforcement into confrontation and to play victim for the press, to great effect.