RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thespectator.com/topic/donald-trump-calls-renewal-american-patriotism/

Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night was the most powerful, rousing and pointed of any presidential address in decades. “America is back… and we are just getting started,” it began, capturing the theme of the night. The address ended with a peroration that his administration would “take up the righteous cause of American liberty” and “fight, fight, fight for a country our citizens’ believe in and deserve.” Our country’s “Golden Age,” he said, ”has just begun.”

Dozens and dozens of applause lines were planted throughout the speech as Trump laid out his ambitious agenda and his accomplishments so far. It was not the dull laundry list of programs most presidents present to Congress.

There was an upbeat coherence to the address. It included plenty of specific proposals, but they were not the focus of the speech. The emphasis was on a renewal of American patriotism — a new “Golden Age” — illustrated by his achievements so far. The leitmotif was his recognition of citizens in the gallery who underscored those themes. They embodied both our country’s virtues and its tragedies, the result of policies gone horribly wrong. He pinned those tragedies on Joe Biden and the Democrats.

The result was a bravura performance for the president, a pep rally for congressional Republicans and a train wreck for the Democrats, who sat glumly in their seats, holding signs up attacking the president and booing his applause lines.

The Democrats’ self-inflicted humiliation began as soon as Trump started. Congressman Al Green, who introduced a bill to impeach President Trump shortly after he took office, rose with a cane in hand and started yelling at the president, refusing to be silent or sit (when asked by House Speaker Mike Johnson) and ultimately had to be removed from the chamber.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/05/social-security-administration-identifies-800m-in-savings-for-fiscal-year-2025/

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has managed to identify at least $800 million in cost savings for the agency for the fiscal year 2025.

As the Washington Examiner reports, many of the savings have come from the reevaluation of contracts and grants, as well as payroll, information technology, changes to travel policy, consolidating office space, and switching from printed paper to electronic forms.

“For too long, SSA has operated on autopilot,” said Acting SSA Commissioner Lee Dudek in a statement. “We have spent billions annually doing the same things the same way, leading to bureaucratic stagnation, inefficiency, and a lack of meaningful service improvements. It is time to change just that.”

The main source of savings was a hiring freeze on SSA Disability Determination Services and a reduction in overtime pay, which accounted for $550 million. Another $150 million was saved by cancelling non-essential contracts in the agency’s Information Technology (IT) systems. The agency saved $15 million in canceled contracts and another $15 million in canceled grants.

https://www.thefp.com/p/victor-davis-hanson-can-trump-reset

 https://newcriterion.com/article/maga-agonistes/\

The Trumpian agenda to “Make America Great Again” emerged during the 2015–16 campaign and ensured Donald Trump’s nomination and eventual victory over Hillary Clinton. This counterrevolutionary movement reflected the public’s displeasure with both the Obama administration’s hard swing to the left and the doctrinaire, anemic Republican reaction to it.

Although only partially implemented during Trump’s first term, MAGA policies nevertheless marked a break from many past Republican orthodoxies, especially in their signature skepticism concerning the goal of nation-building abroad and the so-called endless wars, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, that tended to follow. But like all counterrevolutions, there were intrinsic challenges in the transition from simply opposing the status quo to actually ending it.

There was a promising start during Trump’s first administration. Corporate interest in a porous border to ensure inexpensive labor was ignored; immigration was deterred or restricted to legal channels, and the border was largely secured. Deregulation and tax cuts, rather than deficit reduction, were prioritized. Selective tariffs were no longer deemed apostasies from the free market, but acceptable and indeed useful levers to enforce reciprocity in foreign trade. Costly middle-class entitlements were pronounced sacrosanct. Social Security and Medicare were declared immune from cost-cutting and privatization.

This “action plan to Make America Great Again” went hand in hand with an effort to transform the Republican Party. What had once been routinely caricatured as a wealthy club of elites was reinvented by Trump as a working-class populist movement. Racial chauvinism and tribalism were rejected. Race was to be seen as incidental to shared class concerns—notably, reining in the excesses of a progressive, identity politics–obsessed bicoastal elite. Athletes who in 2020 had bent a knee to express outrage at “systemic” racism were in 2024 celebrating their scores by emulating Trump’s signature dance moves.

Despite intense resistance from the media, the Democratic Party, and the cultural left, the first Trump term enjoyed success in implementing many of these agendas. After losing the 2020 election—in which nearly 70 percent of voters in key swing states voted by mail-in ballot—Trump left office without a major war on his watch. He had overseen a period with 1.9 percent annualized inflation, low interest rates, steady economic growth and, finally, after constant battles and controversy, a secure border with little illegal immigration.

Yet during the succeeding four-year Biden interregnum, the world became far more chaotic and dangerous, both at home and abroad. Biden’s general agenda was to reverse by executive order almost every policy that Trump had implemented. And while Trump was successfully reelected in 2024 after reminding voters that they had been far better off under the MAGA agenda than during Biden’s subsequent shambolic tenure, the changed conditions in 2024 will also make implementing that agenda even more difficult than after Trump’s first victory.

Trump has now inherited an almost bankrupt country. The ratio of debt to annual GDP has reached a record high of nearly 125 percent—exceeding the worst years of World War II. The nation remains sharply divided over the southern border. Trump’s own base demands that he address an estimated 12 million additional unvetted illegal aliens; diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates and racial quotas; and an array of enemies abroad who are no longer deterred by or content with the global status quo. The eight-year Obama revolution, in retrospect, did not change American institutions and policies nearly as much as the more radical four-year Biden tenure. And so often, when drastic remedies are proposed, their implementation may appear to the inured public—at least initially—as a cure worse than the disease.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/03/understanding_president_trump_s_joint_session_address.html

On President Trump’s last occasion of speaking in the House for a State of the Union speech, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tore up the speech while seated behind the President. Last night signaled important political changes since that time. Speaker Michael Johnson and Vice President J.D. Vance were seated behind President Trump. The speech was an important indication of the rapid pace of accomplishments for the president.

The tradition of speaking before Congress is relatively unique in American history. Speaking to Congress in this direct manner was a tradition that began just over 100 years ago when Woodrow Wilson sought to build various political foundations for a more powerful executive branch. The State of the Union message as specified by the Constitution as an annual report to Congress was delivered as a written letter until Wilson changed this tradition in the early 20th century. Wilson, FDR, Obama, and Biden have all made important efforts to expand the practical power of the presidency beyond its constitutional limits. Biden repeatedly ignored Supreme Court rulings against his executive actions, such as forgiving student loan debt. Democrat presidents played an important role in expanding executive power throughout the 20th century.

The Democrat congressional membership employed exceptional resistance tactics including the use of handbills and a speech by Texas representative Al Green seeking to interrupt the President’s speech. Speaker Mike Johnson ordered the removal of Green from the chamber. Green was the first House member to file impeachment charges against Trump in the current presidential term. One of the most consistent messages of the handbills was the word “False” presumably asserting that the President’s statements were false.

The important accomplishments President Trump pointed to included: 1) government waste discoveries made by DOGE, 2) reductions in illegal immigration, 3) the renewal of tax cuts and new tax cuts, 4) a new policy of tariffs on many foreign nations, 5) the introduction of new cabinet members. He ended the speech with an intensive peroration that reconnected with the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania. Calling for the nation to fight, fight, fight for the coming “golden age” of American formed a passionate ending to the speech.

The Democratic Party plan for resistance to the President did not appear to form a meaningful coherence. No singular complaint or message appeared to unify the opposition to the president. Nonetheless, the Democrat congressional members appeared exceptionally unwilling to applaud or provide meaningful evidence of support.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/culture-war-dei-jargon-junk-mail

The modern world floods us with junk, trash, and slop. Our mailboxes overflow with advertisements and brochures, and our email boxes with organizational announcements, corporate spam, and political fundraising appeals—usually unsolicited. While most of us focus on getting rid of these distractions, if we suspend our usual habit, we might see that they reveal the balance of power of the cultural status quo. In recent months, it has shifted dramatically.

Many Fortune 100 companies that once prominently featured DEI in their communications have now removed any mention of “diversity and inclusion,” with an increasing number shutting down those departments altogether. Ivy League universities, once quick to issue official statements on every news event, now emphasize outstanding research and academic excellence over race and gender activism. Primary and secondary schools have followed suit. In the aftermath of the George Floyd riots, they prioritized social justice and ideological observances, such as Black Lives Matter Week and the Transgender Day of Remembrance. But now, under sustained pressure from parents and the Trump administration, political messaging has notably disappeared from many American school districts’ standard communications.

These are welcome developments. Despite their flaws, America’s institutions remain adaptable, capable of course correction when experiments fail and responsive to demands for reform. The shift in institutional messaging reflects a broader cultural realignment. Many organizations appear to recognize—at least in their public communications—that they had strayed from their core missions. Their new messaging signals a return to fundamentals: companies focusing on profit, universities on knowledge, and schools on education. The “culture war” that many of us have waged for years has reshaped how institutions perceive themselves and engage with the public.

This does not mean the problem is solved. Left-wing radicals remain deeply entrenched in many institutions, particularly in education. They are tenacious, ruthless, and committed—but not invulnerable. The incentives and status signals around them have shifted in the conservative’s favor. The widening gap between these activists and the institutions they have influenced presents an opportunity. President Trump has seized it, dismantling DEI departments, removing full-time activists, and shifting legal and cultural boundaries rightward, encouraging the broader public—which largely follows prevailing norms—to adopt better customs and habits.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/03/03/get-ready-a-civil-war-is-about-to-break-out-in-the-democratic-party-n4937510

The Democratic Party may be imploding before our eyes, folks. What we’re seeing isn’t just your typical post-election finger-pointing—it’s a potential full-blown civil war brewing between moderates and the radical left wing that has hijacked the party and alienated mainstream Americans.

If recent developments are any indication, the moderates are finally growing a spine.

According to a report from Politico, several dozen Democratic operatives and elected officials gathered at a Potomac River resort in Loudoun County, Va., last month for what amounted to an intervention. The day-and-a-half retreat wasn’t just about licking wounds—it was about calling out the cancer destroying their electoral chances.

“In the wake of this election, where it became so evident that the things that the left was doing and saying deeply hurt [Kamala] Harris and down-ballot Democrats, a lot of people are looking to us, not just Third Way, but the moderates in the party, and saying, ‘We got to do it your way, because the other way ain’t working,’” said Third Way’s Matt Bennett, one of the retreat’s organizers. 

The retreat produced a five-page document of takeaways. Politico described the document as “perhaps one of the most comprehensive and sweeping of its kind following the election — both in its analysis of what went wrong and how to fix it.”

The diagnosis is clear: The party has lost touch with working-class Americans by embracing radical leftist ideology and aligning with deeply unpopular institutions like academia, media, and government bureaucracy.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/04/the-democrats-coming-civil-war/

At a time when the world press is obsessed with US president Donald Trump and his often imbecilic machinations, perhaps a more consequential struggle is taking place on the other side of the aisle. Trump and his minions may completely control the GOP, but the future of the Democrats is uncertain. The party’s left is locked in battle with those who embrace the party’s traditional values, like support for economic growth and enforcing the law.

Right now, on a national level, the Democratic Party seems to be continuing its movement leftwards. Kamala Harris is still its front-runner for the 2028 presidential election and representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett, who are further to the left, are widely seen as rising stars. Looking at the behaviour of the Democrats and their media allies, they seem to be reprising Talleyrand’s quip that the Bourbon kings of France ‘learnt nothing and forgot nothing’ after the revolution.

At the recent Democratic National Committee election for the party’s new leadership, there was an enduring obsession with race and gender. Veteran Democrat Ruy Teixeira described it as ‘like outtakes from a humanities seminar at a small liberal-arts college’. We saw similar scenes in November, with the backlash received by Massachusetts congressman Seth Moulton when he dared to share concerns about his young daughter potentially having to compete against male athletes. As a result, he faced the resignation of key staffers, as well as threats from one university to cancel an internship programme associated with his office.

Yet even as the national party drifts off the reservation, there are hopeful signs of growing anti-woke pushback in the Democrats’ modern heartlands – namely, in America’s big cities.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/supreme-court-trump-firings-executive-branch-power

Article II of the Constitution begins with a simple declarative sentence: “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.” Those 15 words are at the heart of a key battle in the early days of the second Trump administration—and will likely be the basis for consolidating power in one individual over what has become the most important branch of government.

In his first month in office, President Trump has removed many officials, both high-ranking and middle-managerial, hoping to streamline government and wrest control of the permanent bureaucracy. Many of the dispatched employees have contested their removal in court. The dispute is partially about civil-service rules and, more consequentially, about the president’s ability to remove principal officers of so-called independent agencies, which themselves are a contradiction in constitutional terms.

These employees argue that their firings were unconstitutional because of a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision that protects heads of independent agencies (but not cabinet departments) from without-cause removal. That 1935 precedent, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, held that agencies wielding “quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative” power can only get fired for incompetence or malfeasance, not mere presidential agenda-setting. In 1988, the justices extended Humphrey’s Executive to nearly all federal officials in Morrison v. Olson, over a fierce solo dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia, who argued that the presidential removal power was essential to checking government abuses and ensuring political accountability. Those decisions fueled the rise of the modern administrative state.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/03/04/memo-to-trump-get-focused-on-the-economy-before-its-too-late/

Conservatives have been positively giddy with the whirlwind of activity out of the White House over the past five weeks. But if President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress don’t start focusing on the economy, the excitement will be short-lived.

Not only are there worrisome signs of an economic slowdown, but the public is growing increasingly frustrated with what they see as a lack of attention to pocketbook issues on Trump’s part. Republican lawmakers are making matters worse by dawdling on extending Trump’s tax cuts, which is causing businesses to hold off on big investments. This is a lethal combination.

The latest sign the economy continues to struggle comes from the GDPNow, produced by the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, which projects GDP growth for each quarter based on currently available data, and changes as those data roll in. Data released on Monday caused a sharp downgrade in GDPNow forecast to -2.8% for the quarter, from -1.5% last Friday.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Confidence Index dropped sharply in February and “pessimism about the future returned,” according to the Conference Board.

The latest I&I/TIPP poll finds that 76% of those surveyed are concerned about an economic slowdown, with 45% saying they are “very concerned.” And 82% are troubled about inflation.

(We will have a complete report Wednesday on the poll’s findings.)

In other words, we are not out of the woods yet.

Here’s the worrisome part.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”

                                                                                                                               Robert Hughes (1938-2012)

                                                                                                                                Australian author & art critic

 “Our doubts are traitors and cause us to miss the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”

         Measure for Measure William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

As the two epigraphs infer, doubt is personal. In her Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, the American poet wrote “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” On the other hand, in The Selected Letters of Tennessee Wiliams, the playwright is quoted: “I don’t believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work…”

Doubt, including self-doubt, and skepticism are not synonymous but are related. Doubt can be defined as uncertainty regarding one’s abilities (as Lucio infers). It also serves as questioning one’s judgement (as Robert Hughes suggests). It is intuitive, reflecting a lack of knowledge, as Thomas wanted proof of Jesus’ resurrection. On the other hand, a skeptic is one with an open mind who questions the truth of something stated or alleged, or at least who defers judgement until more facts are available.

This is not to argue that belief in one’s self is uncommon. When a youth, I was not skeptical about much and had few self-doubts. Many of us were raised on the American folktale, The Little Engine that Could. Theodore Roosevelt, allegedly, expressed a similar sentiment: “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” All good advice, so long as it does not morph into cockiness, arrogance, or conceit. As I grew older, I read and thought more, I became more skeptical. I recall, when a teenager, the president of a brokerage firm who told me that the longer he worked in the business the less he felt he knew about finance.