RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/02/08/doge-cancels-180000-anthony-fauci-museum-exhibit-n3799632

Well, well, well. 

As DOGE rampages through the federal budget in the most glorious way possible, they keep finding the most egregious spending. 

The worst spending tends to be the anodyne-sounding programs that are sold to make our lives “better,” but the funniest and often most infuriating are the smaller and more ridiculous things like transgender comic books and operas. 

This spending item stands out for another reason: it celebrates Anthony Fauci as a American hero and not the evil villain that he is. 
Someday, and I hope that day comes soon enough for Fauci to see it happen, he will be exposed to all the world as the man who gifted us both COVID and the tyranny and social destruction that followed in its wake. Perhaps then it would make sense to spend hundreds of thousands or millions to expose him and hold up as an example of why bureaucrats should never be allowed to become too powerful. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/11/the-big-lie-about-trumps-nih-cuts/

As day follows night, Democrats and various other big-government parasites screamed that the Trump administration’s decision to cut back on National Institutes of Health grants to colleges and universities would prove cataclysmic.

What’s really happening? Donald Trump is choking off a slush fund that colleges and universities have used for decades to finance left-wing causes.

On Feb. 7, the NIH announced that it would pay only 15% in overhead costs to colleges and universities instead of the average 26% it paid out in 2023.

The primal screams were immediate.

Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, claimed that “they are causing irreparable damage to ongoing research to develop cures and treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, ALS, Diabetes, Mental Health disorders, opioid abuse, genetic diseases, rare diseases, and other diseases and conditions affecting American families.”

A Johns Hopkins University professor wailed that “the lives of my children and grandchildren – and maybe yours – will be shorter and sicker, because discoveries will not be made.”

Harvard President Alan Garber said that it would “cut research activity at … every research university in our nation.”

Attorneys general from 22 states have filed suit against the overhead cap, claiming the harm will be “immediate and devastating.”

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/10/how-to-commit-democratic-party-suicide/

The Democratic Party is polling about 31 percent approval, a near-historic low.

Despite enjoying a huge lead in fundraising, legacy media favoritism, and incumbency, in the 2024 election, Democrats lost the White House to Donald Trump. Ever since, they have offered nothing new, no novel agenda, no innovative policies—nothing other than screaming that they are loudly against everything and anything that the president is for.

In the past, what did they accomplish by following their prior two impeachments with attempts to de-ballot Trump? Who thought sending an FBI swat team to raid Trump’s home or waging five lawfare civil and criminal suits and issuing 91 felony indictments against him would win over the public?

Was conducting a media barrage of Hitler-Trump invectives, or lowering the bar of demonization that likely led to two assassination attempts of Trump a good way to win an election?

Apparently not, given the Democrats have now lost the presidency, the House, and the Senate. The Supreme Court is conservative. They have no power to subpoena anyone; they cannot block any nomination. Much of their old administrative state control is eroding. All the main issues—the economy, energy, border security, illegal immigration, crime, DEI/woke, and foreign policy—poll against the Democrats. The more they shouted that biological men must be able to compete as transgendered females in women’s sports, the more that 80% of the public disagreed, women were turned off, and the absurd idea was exploded by Trump.

The power of the administrative state, the legacy network news, print media, and Silicon Valley’s social media and search engines, the billions that poured into the Biden and Harris campaign all went for naught.

The efforts of moderators to warp debates, of network news to edit out unfavorable Harris or Biden comments, of leftists to cancel, deplatform, ostracize, censor, and shadow ban their enemies have failed. More likely to succeed now are numerous lawsuits against leftwing media for chronic defamation and censorship.

Given that collective meltdown, what would a sane Democratic Party do?

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-2-8-kindergarten-konstitutional-law-comes-to-the-southern-district-of-new-york

In yesterday’s post, reviewing a Washington Post op-ed by Ruth Marcus that called efforts by the duly-elected President to direct the bureaucracy to implement his policies a “power grab” and an “onslaught against the government itself,” I described the piece as reflecting “kindergarten-level constitutional analysis.” After all, my 6 year old first-grader grandson is fully capable of reading the first sentence of Article II of the Constitution (“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”) and figuring out that this guy is given the sole and full power to direct the executive branch of the federal government. Nothing about the elected President exercising such powers is or can be a “power grab.” If you are somehow unable to grasp that simple proposition, you therefore must be at sub-first grade level of comprehension, and thus kindergarten level, at the highest.

Well, today Kindergarten Konstitutional Law came to the Southern District of New York. In response to a motion made by some 19 states (all Democrat-led), a Southern District Judge named Paul Engelmayer issued a Temporary Restraining Order preventing President Trump and Treasury Secretary Bessent from “granting access” to Treasury Department payment systems to anyone other than “civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties.” Here is a copy of Judge Engelmayer’s Order. Looking at the language of the Order that I just quoted, it seems to mean quite clearly that even President Trump and Secretary Bessent themselves are enjoined from looking at the line-by-line details of who is getting paid by the Treasury. Why? Because the information is “sensitive.” I’m not making this up.

So who is this Engelmayer guy? You will not be surprised to learn that he is someone with the highest of the high credentials of the super-elite who claim the prerogative to run the federal government outside of any democratic control. Here is a Wikipedia biography of Engelmayer. (The bio contains a prominent caveat that “a major contributor” to the bio “appears to have a close connection” to the subject. I take that to mean that Engelmayer probably wrote the thing himself, so you can take it for what it’s worth.). The bio says that Engelmayer is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit, and then for Thurgood Marshall at the Supreme Court. He served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, and did a term with the Solicitor General’s office in Washington during the Clinton administration. And at some point he slid seamlessly into the job of Managing Partner of the New York office of Wilmer Hale. He was named to the Southern District bench by President Obama in 2011.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/02/a-victory-for-women-athletes/

As long as we’ve had organized sports, no one thought it would be a good idea for men to compete against women, until the last several years. As part of the trans craze, male athletes infiltrated women’s competitions, teams, and locker rooms. The consequences were woeful, and sometimes, men claimed a spot on each rank of the podium in women’s divisions. Now, President Trump has intervened with his aptly named executive order, “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports.”

Trump has already been fighting the pervasive gender ideology through his executive actions. On Inauguration Day, he signed an order on “gender ideology extremism” that directed all federal agencies and employees to operate on sex-based definitions of words like “male,” “female,” “men,” “women,” “boys,” and “girls.” On January 28, Trump signed the order on “chemical and surgical mutilation” that protects children from the medical abuse that is often wrongly branded as “gender-affirming care.” The recent executive order, announced on Wednesday, takes drastic action to ensure that Title IX promotes equal opportunity and equal protection in sports on the basis of sex rather than gender — and universities or athletic associations that don’t comply will likely suffer a painful punishment.

In his order, Trump directed the secretary of education to pursue action against educational institutions or sports associations that either require women to compete against males or undress in their presence. Moreover, all executive departments and agencies are empowered to rescind funding to programs that similarly violate these sex-based protections. The Department of Justice is instructed to coordinate and provide the necessary resources to enforce these policies. But perhaps only minimal enforcement efforts will be needed, since it seems that even the most high-profile organizations have already proposed plans to make changes. For example, the NCAA announced that women’s competitions would be limited to athletes who were born female.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/democrat-leader-wants-leftists-to-fight-trumps-policies-in-the-streets/

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has called upon people to fight the “extreme MAGA Republican agenda” not just “legislatively” and “in the courts,” but “in the streets.” The Trump White House has demanded that Jeffries apologize, but so far he has not done so, and it is unlikely that he will. It makes sense that he wouldn’t. After all, how can he apologize for echoing a call that numerous leftists have made in recent years?

According to a Friday report in the New York Post, Jeffries and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-Race Hatred) were criticizing Trump for his handling of the helicopter/plane collision in Washington when a reporter asked Jeffries about New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has been showing dangerous signs lately of not showing the unremitting hostility to Trump that the left requires.

That was not a question Jeffries wanted to address. He said: “I’ll have more to say about the future of the mayorship of the city of New York at the appropriate time.” Jeffries then changed the subject, and began expatiating on how leftists should be responding to this moment of deep crisis for their socialist internationalist agenda.

Jeffries continued: “Right now, we’re going to keep focused on the need to look out for everyday New Yorkers and everyday Americans who are under assault by an extreme MAGA Republican agenda that is trying to cut taxes for billionaires, donors, and wealthy corporations and then stick New Yorkers and working class Americans across the country with the bill. That’s not acceptable. We are going to fight it legislatively. We are going to fight it in the courts. We’re going to fight it in the streets.”

This was the minority leader of the House of Representatives, someone who is supposed to want to be invested in the safety and wellbeing of Americans, issuing an open call for violence. White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai declared: “While President Trump remains focused on uniting our country and delivering the mandate set by the American people, the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, incites violence calling for people to fight ‘in the streets’ against President Trump’s agenda. This unhinged violent rhetoric is dangerous. Leader Jeffries should immediately apologize.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/10/a-sputnik-moment-majority-fear-losing-ai-lead-to-china-back-more-govt-investment-ii-tipp-poll/

Americans mostly want smaller, more effective government that spends less of their money while still doing essential things that only governments can do. But, in the latest I&I/TIPP Poll, there’s one area where people see a definite role for government: The ongoing U.S.-China battle to dominate the global artificial intelligence (AI) market, estimated to be worth trillions of dollars.

America had a kind of “Sputnik moment” recently, as tech author Charles Hugh Smith put it, after claims were made that China’s “DeepSeek” R1 AI software had leapfrogged other global AI versions and that it did so with an unbelievably parsimonious development cost of only $6 million.

That seemingly innocuous announcement sent stock markets plunging around the world, leading to such headlines as Chinese AI threat triggers $1 trillion market crash, DeepSeek sends a shockwave through markets, and Did China’s DeepSeek Just Pop The AI Stock Bubble?, among many, many others.

Does this bother average Americans? Quite a bit, it seems. In February’s national online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken Jan. 29-31 from a sample of 1,478 adults, survey participants were asked three questions about the booming field of artificial intelligence.

The first question: “How concerned are you about China potentially surpassing the U.S. in artificial intelligence development?”

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/09/trump-musk-and-the-deep-state-the-battle-over-transparency-begins/

Here we go again. At the beginning of his first term as president, Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily banning travel from several countries—Yemen, for example, Sudan, Libya, and four others—that had been identified as major exporters of terrorism.  The left went nuts, excoriating Trump for his “racist” “Muslim travel ban.”

It wasn’t a “Muslim travel ban,” but try telling that to Seattle District Court judge James Robart. He sniffed the air, sensed the pleasing hysteria and press coverage, and issued a cursory restraining order against Trump’s executive order. The humorous part of Robart’s order came towards the end.  As I wrote at the time, Robart insisted that the “declaratory and injunctive relief” outlined in his order be applied immediately and on a “nationwide basis” (my emphasis).

Seattle has spoken, Comrades! Judge Robarts finds (where? how?) that his court has jurisdiction over … well, over just about everything: the president and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, for starters, but also “the United States of America (collectively).”

So all across the fruited plain, “Federal Defendants and all their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and persons acting in concert or participation with them are hereby ENJOINED and RESTRAINED” from enforcing the President’s executive order.

This may be the best place to pause and point out that Donald Trump, acting as the president of the United States, was perfectly within his rights to issue an executive order to suspend travel from particular countries.

And so it is now with Trump’s deputies in the Department of Government Efficiency.  Tasked with the daunting task of unscrambling the byzantine Rube Goldberg device that is the 21st-century administrative state for furthering corruption, illegal payments, and partisan influence at home and abroad, DOGE commander Elon Musk and his laptop-and-algorithm-toting lieutenants have been patiently uncovering the pyramid of waste, fraud, and abuse that is the foundation of the United States government in its twenty-first-century incarnation.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/02/07/why_trumps_anti-dei_order_is_both_radical_and_rooted_in_civil_rights_law_1089775.html

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, convened a panel of civil rights leaders last month to assail President Donald Trump’s executive order on “ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity.” The so-called anti-DEI order, Morial claimed, was an effort to “reverse the gains of the last seventy years.” 

Marc Morial: His National Urban League has adopted the very types of discriminatory racial practices that were once condemned by early civil rights leaders seeking a truly colorblind society — notably Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his March on Washington (top photo). 
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

“Diversity, equity and inclusion are aligned with American values,” declared Morial. To any critics claiming that DEI represents “some sort of preference program” that “divides Americans,” Morial scoffed. “We say, absolutely not.” Morial then argued that the organizations gathered there would crusade to protect DEI and “the notion that everyone has an equal opportunity.” 

This response of the civil rights establishment was more than simply a vow of resistance to the Trump order; it reflected opposition to a long-cresting sea change in racial politics in America.

In 1963, the Urban League was one of the groups that participated in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, where King envisioned a nation for his children not “judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” During this period, non-white Americans faced legal and cultural barriers to full participation in civic life, from school segregation to rampant discrimination in employment and housing opportunities.

Much has changed over the years. The Trump executive order was issued to counter a new form of discrimination as the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Many organizations, in an attempt to address anger about historical injustices, have fostered bias against groups perceived as privileged – particularly white and Asian men – and have developed explicit policies designed to advantage those perceived as disadvantaged. 

The Supreme Court found that a bid to achieve diversity-related goals, Harvard had illegally engaged in racial discrimination. The Trump order builds on that.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5133353-elon-musk-reduces-government/amp/

It appears that Elon Musk has incited the good townsfolk of Washington, D.C.

Across the internet, politicians and pundits are in a monstrous mood. The same people who spent the last year declaring the imminent death of democracy if Donald Trump were elected are now insisting that the real threat is the monster he has unleashed upon the federal bureaucracy.

For Washingtonians, Musk is the bogeyman they have long described to their children around campfires at night: An outsider who comes to town and lays waste to government waste, firing thousands and slashing budgets. Part Frankenstein, part Bigfoot, that creature never had a name, but would be beholden to no one and uninterested in the status quo.

The monster now has a name, and it is Elon Musk.

Democratic politicians are now claiming that reducing government is equivalent to destroying government. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) yelled dramatically to an outdoor crowd this week that Musk’s government efficiency efforts are “taking away everything we have.”

For decades, both Democratic and Republican presidents have run on reducing government and making it more efficient. But everyone knew that such campaign pledges would be quickly discarded after each election.

What is so terrifying this time is that Musk means it. We know that because he has done it before.

When Musk bought Twitter with the promise of dismantling its censorship system and culture, he started by firing virtually everyone. Critics immediately declared that he was a fool and did not understand how to run a social media company. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich said that Musk’s firings meant the death of Twitter and triumphantly declared, “You break it, you own it.”