RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thespectator.com/topic/trumps-presidency-is-an-ink-blot-test-for-america/

Americans are being given a national ink-blot test. Their answers tell us how a divided country sees the political landscape and what they think of President Trump’s bold efforts to reshape it.

The scope for differing interpretations is illustrated by a story about one such Rorschach test. The psychiatrist shows his new patient ink blot after ink blot. No response. Finally, the exasperated doctor pleads with him to say something, anything. “Look, doc,” he says, “I didn’t come here for you to show me dirty pictures.”

That’s exactly how Democrats see Donald Trump’s presidency. It’s one dirty picture after another. A few moderate Republicans share that perspective, but they are outliers in a party Trump has reshaped in his own image.

When Trump’s party looks at the same ink blots, they see the Sistine Chapel. For them, this inspiring vision paints over the graffiti scrawled by the Biden administration. Of course, Democrats think Trump is doing the spray-painting.

It is hard to imagine two more starkly different interpretations of American politics today. Average voters lie somewhere in the middle, but closer to the Republican view, according to recent polls. They are pleased with the opening weeks of the new administration, repulsed by the Democrats’ inflammatory rhetoric, and soured by their memories of the Biden years. Public approval for the Democratic Party has plummeted to historic lows, nearing 30 percent.

The Democrats’ catastrophic numbers and Trump’s strong ones are huge political assets for the new administration. The crucial question is how can the president exploit those assets before the glow fades?

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/17/151m-in-food-money-for-u-s-soldiers-was-spent-elsewhere-report/

A stunning new report reveals that a significant majority of U.S. Army funding that was designated for food programs for soldiers was spent on other things.

As reported by Breitbart, the claims were made by Military.com, which investigated the funding from the Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) program, which is meant to provide meal funding for junior enlisted soldiers. Out of $225 million collected by BAS in 2024, $151 million did not go towards providing food for soldiers, with only $74 million actually being used for its original purpose.

“It’s just returned to the big pool of army funds, and it’s used someplace else,” said an anonymous Army official.

BAS funding is provided primarily by a “tax on troops,” with approximately $460 being deducted from each soldier’s paycheck every month. Junior enlisted soldiers only make about $30,000 a year, thus amounting to $5,520 – over 1/6th of their earnings – being taken from their paycheck every year for BAS funding.

Military.com’s report was compiled through a study of the 11 largest military bases in 2024. The findings quickly revealed significant differences between the amount of money that was collected and the amount of money that was actually spent.

“Given that the Army operates 104 garrisons, the true amount of unspent funds is likely far higher,” the report notes.

The report led to bipartisan criticism of the Army’s misuse of funds, with Congressman Jul Tokuda (D-Hawaii) issuing a statement saying that “stealing food money from our soldiers is not how we achieve military readiness.”

“The fact that at least $151 million was collected from soldiers and not spent on food as required demands not just an immediate investigation, but swift accountability,” Tokuda added.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/18/virtue-signaling-now-means-you-have-to-sell-that-tesla/

Remember when all the best people, the elites and elitists among us, the correct thinkers, the self-appointed guardians of all things good, were buying electric vehicles, particularly Teslas? What a terrific way for them to demonstrate their green street cred. But that’s passé. The latest in look-at-me virtue signaling is selling that Tesla to make an important political statement.

Because Tesla CEO Elon Musk is aiding President Donald Trump in rooting out federal waste and corruption, he’s become a villain to the left. To be caught in one his cars is simply an embarrassment to status seekers and the prigs obsessed with placing themselves on Barack Obama’s “right side of history.” So like entertainer Sheryl Crow, they have to unload their Teslas, and, naturally, do it as loudly as possible.

Last week, Crow “dramatically bid adieu to her black Tesla,” the New York Post reported, to protest the man she tagged on her Instagram account as “#PresidentMusk.”

Crow took to social media on Friday to reveal she had sold the electric car and was donating the money to NPR, “which Musk has repeatedly called to defund as his Department of Government Efficiency looks to slash federal funding.”

“My parents always said … you are who you hang out with,” wrote Crow. “There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.”

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/17/is-there-a-democrat-blueprint-to-regain-power/

“The voters’ problem with the new Democratic Party is not just that they are old and unhinged, but that they are so wearily and predictably boring.”

What is the long-term Democratic Party’s strategy to return to power?

Americans may ask that only because so far, the Democrat agenda seems to entail polarizing and alienating as many voters as possible.

They gleefully double down on their 2024 defeat. And they seem almost to grow ecstatic at ensuring that Donald Trump and his record poll at unprecedented highs.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) rants on national TV that Trump is a d—k and promises to go to “war” against him.

Democratic representatives chant “f—k Trump” on national television.

Senator “Spartacus” Booker (D-NJ) almost daily shouts to high heaven and barks out promises of massive resistance, proving he is far crazier than his allegedly crazy Trump.

During the recent cabinet confirmations, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Tim Kaine lost their minds in impotent rage at the nominees and played the fools—furious at a few timid Democrat suggestions to tone it down.

Democrats bark that Elon Musk is even more Satanic than Trump.

They swarm and try to break into the Department of Education. They shut down the LA freeways. And in the case of illegal aliens, they wave the flag of the nation they fled from, while burning the flag of the nation in which they demand to remain.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/13/rory-stewart-turquoise-mountain-and-the-fall-of-woke-colonialism/

Oh no, how will the women of Afghanistan cope without lectures about Marcel Duchamp’s urinal? They’ll have to find a way. For it’s been revealed that Turquoise Mountain, a batty British charity that has lectured Afghan women about the wonders of conceptual art, has had its USAID funding slashed. I hope you’re happy now, Donald Trump and Elon Musk – no more will the tyrannised women of Afghanistan enjoy the sweet relief of a plummy Brit telling them about the time Duchamp put a porcelain piss station in an art gallery.

This is the heartbreaking news that the NGO founded by King Charles and run by Rory Stewart’s wife, Shoshana, has had its USAID handout of a million dollars slashed. It was Rory who broke the story. Looking even soppier than normal in his weekly conflab with Alastair Campbell on their surreally successful podcast, The Rest Is Politics, he said USAID funding for Turquoise Mountain ‘just stopped’. It had a contract with USAID, and it ‘had another million dollars to go’, and yet mad, bad Trump pulled the plug, Rory almost sobbed.

And what urgent work does Turquoise Mountain do? It promotes craft-making in Afghanistan. You can buy its ‘hand-knotted rugs’ made by ‘talented weavers’ – a must-have for every virtuous home in the West’s turbo-smug boroughs.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-2-12-facebook-google-et-al-and-dei-lets-not-forget-their-insufferable-sanctimony

A few days ago, Google announced that it had abandoned its targets for “diversity, equity and inclusion” for its workforce. Here is the February 5 New York Times article covering the announcement. According to the Times, Google attributed the change of policy to its need “as a federal contractor . . . to comply with President Trump’s executive orders opposing diversity, equity and inclusion policies.” Google’s announcement came about a month after Facebook parent Meta had (formally) made the same change of policy. (See CNBC’s January 10 piece here covering the Meta announcement.). Google and Facebook are now two leaders in what has become a full-on parade of corporate giants making the same sudden 180 degree reversal of what had previously been broadcast as fundamental corporate policy. Among others in this group are Amazon, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s, and even Disney.

Was the commitment to DEI of Corporate America, and particularly of the tech giants, really this shallow, that they would all reverse course completely and suddenly and in unison and without a peep of objection?

The truth is that these companies are all breathing a huge sigh of relief at having finally been let off the DEI hook. Their DEI promises were always a ludicrous fantasy. And they were all quickly running into an impossible situation where the promises they had made could not be continued.

Meanwhile DEI had become an increasingly militant and desperate racial spoils regime. As further progress toward its goals became less and less possible, maintaining the regime inevitably required ever more enforced agreement and silencing of dissent. The end of this mess is something we should all welcome. And I do welcome its end, which I certainly hope is permanent.