RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/09/gavin-newsom-and-his-cruel-notion-of-cruel/

Recently, Gov. Newsom weighed in on the Trump administration’s efforts to undo the last four years of border destruction, when an estimated 10-12 million illegal aliens entered the U.S. unlawfully—among them thousands with criminal records.

Of the recent Los Angeles efforts of ICE to detain those who entered and reside here illegally, the governor proclaimed:

“Continued chaotic federal sweeps, across California, to meet an arbitrary arrest quota are as reckless as they are cruel. Donald Trump’s chaos is eroding trust, tearing families apart, and undermining the workers and industries that power America’s economy.”

Dissect that statement, and almost everything Newsom said was either not factual or misleading.

“Chaotic?” What is chaotic is allowing 12 million unaudited migrants into the U.S. ahead of those waiting years for background checks and legal permission.

The current antidote to a truly chaotic, nonexistent border was to bring some legality and order back to immigration—and not to perpetuate a wild-west border, drug smuggling, cartel profiteering, and child trafficking and abandonment, which were the Biden-era norms.

Chaotic is 1,000 rioters in southern California swarming ICE officers, endangering their safety and lives—and then being contextualized, excused, or even supported by the governor of the state, who supposedly is an upholder of our laws and their enforcement.

Each time Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom side with violent protests and the intimidation of ICE officers, the greater the chance that an officer will be seriously injured or killed—and the violence will spike. Apparently, both think they are riding a wave of public support, when in fact the latest CBS poll found 54 percent of Americans support such deportations.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/simone-biles-hits-riley-gaines-for-wanting-to-save-womens-sports/

Gymnast Simone Biles, who has won seven Olympic gold medals, is enraged at Riley Gaines, a 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer who has become a warrior in the fight to preserve women’s sports from the incursions of big lunkheads who claim to be women and win all the competitions. Biles think the fake women should be allowed to win all the women’s sports competitions, and that Gaines is an awful person for thinking otherwise. Yes, the world has become this absurd.

Fox News reported Saturday that Gaines “took to X on Friday to call out the Minnesota State High School League for posting a picture of the new state champions, Champlin Park High School. The school has made headlines because its dominant performance on the way to the title game was led by junior pitcher Marissa Rothenberger, a transgender athlete competing on the team.” Gaines noted that when it posted a photo of Champlin Park’s championship softball team, the Minnesota State High School League turned off comments, and remarked: “Comments off lol. To be expected when your star player is a boy.”

This drew a heated response not from Rothenberger or his teammates at Champlin Park High, but from Biles, who seemed to have been driven into a wild rage by Gaines thinking it improper for a guy like Rothenberger to be pitching for a girl’s team. Biles wrote: ” You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser.” That was a reference to Gaines finishing in a tie with a man, Lia Thomas, in the 2022 NCAA championships.

Biles continued: “You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!” For good measure, Biles added: “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/09/voters-keen-on-cutting-deficits-but-disagree-how-best-to-do-it-ii-tipp-poll/

If Congress thinks it can once again kick the can down the road when it comes to federal debt and deficits, it might be surprised if it thinks voters really won’t pay much attention. They will, and yes they care about the future danger posed by soaring deficits and debt, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

Congress’ current debate over how much spending to cut, whether to extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, and whether to increase the current $36 trillion debt ceiling by $4 trillion, will all depend on how voters view those moves – and whether they view them as cynical or good-faith efforts to rein in debts, deficits and spending.

To gauge current public sentiment, the national online I&I/TIPP Poll (which sampled 1,395 adults from May 28 to May 30) asked voters the following question: “How concerned are you about the federal budget deficit, which is projected to stay above $2 trillion yearly?”

If you thought they wouldn’t care much, you would be wrong. Three-fourths said they were either “very concerned” (41%) or “somewhat concerned” (34%). Only 15% professed to being either “not very concerned” (11%) or “not at all concerned” (4%). Just 9% were “not sure.”

For a change, opinions on this topic were almost uniform across the political spectrum: Democrats (76% concerned, 16% not concerned), Republicans (79% concerned, 15% not concerned) and independent/third-party voters (72% concerned, 14% not concerned) were eerily identical in their responses.

https://lizpeek.com/news/progressives-push-anti-israel-activism-are-surprised-by-antisemitic-violence-that-follows/?utm_source=newsletter.lizpeek.com

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is running for cover.

After the horrific attack on Jews in Boulder, Colo., the Minnesota representative issued the kind of bland statement meant to deflect blame, posting this on X: “I’m holding the victims and families in Boulder, Colorado in my heart. Violence against anyone is never acceptable. We must reject hatred and harm in all its forms.”

As some noted, it took nearly 24 hours for Omar to issue even that statement, which notably failed to mention that the victims were Jews and the suspect is an Egyptian Muslim who attacked them while shouting “Free Palestine.” A video has now surfaced in which the accused assailant ranted about his faith, saying “Allahu Akbar.” After he firebombed a group of Jews, he told investigators he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”

One of the victims, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, asked NBC News, “What the hell is going on in our country?” It’s a question everyone should be asking.

Here’s part of the answer: It is a very easy hop from college students intimidating Jewish students and chanting about Intifada and a Muslim man trying to murder Jews. It is similarly but a short leap from Omar, who applauded anti-Israel student protesters at Columbia University for being “brave and patriotic,” voted against an antisemitism resolution in the U.S. House and suggested to aggrieved people acting out of anger that some Jewish students are just “pro-genocide.”

It is also easy to connect student demonstrations with terrorism. For the first time, a protester at Columbia University — an outsider arrested for hate crimes against Jews — has been linked to Hamas. He won’t be the last.

In recent months we have witnessed not only the hideous attempt to burn Jews alive in Boulder, but also the firebombing of Jewish Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home and the cold-blooded murder of two young Jewish people at the Jewish Capital Museum in Washington. All three suspects expressed anti-Israel sentiments, with the alleged perpetrator of the latter killings shouting “free, free Palestine” after he shot the victims 21 times.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that 2024 saw a record number of antisemitic attacks, up 344 percent over the past five years. This is intolerable.

Radicalized students at some of our top schools are part of the problem. Recently, MIT’s graduation was marred by a student speaker, Megha Vemuri, who donned the politically symbolic keffiyeh and told the commencement audience, “We are watching Israel try to wipe out Palestine off the face of the earth, and it is a shame that MIT is a part of it.” She also accused MIT of complicity “in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/08/335926/

In 1939, the American novelist Ernest Vincent Wright self-published the 50,000-word novel Gadsby, a lipogram in which the letter “e” does not appear. Since “e” is the most common letter in English, producing a sustained work that is e-less is a tricky thing to do.

You might be asking yourself, “Then why do it? Isn’t it just a pointless exercise?”

Well, is writing a sonnet a pointless exercise? That has plenty of constraints, too, if it is to be a proper sonnet.

But to move from the literary to the political realm, I suspect that writing a novel—or perhaps I should say, “a work”—without the fifth, you know—is akin to writing about Elon Musk’s dust-up with Donald Trump without using, oh no, “bromance.”

In part, it’s a matter of nausea avoidance. If I read another headline with that silly neologism, I might just scream.

So I am going to avoid it here (and, no, I haven’t used the word; I have merely mentioned it).

The amusing aspect of this little drama is that it revolves around the Mr. Etna-like eruption of knowing commentary by people who know nothing about Trump, Musk, their relationship, or what really precipitated their break—if, that is, there really has been a break and not just a bit of calculated theater.

About all that, I know exactly as much as you do, which is to say, nothing.

No one would describe what has happened—or, rather, what is happening still—between them as a personal example of the stately quadrille, the movement of European alliances in the eighteenth century that danced to tunes established by the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). That set concluded with the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, in which Austria changed partners from Britain to France, while Prussia linked arms with Britain.

To read what some in the commentariat have been writing, you might conclude that the Musk-Dump-Trump routine was a world historical event worthy of analysis by Talleyrand or Henry Kissinger.

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

“Tit for Tat: The infliction of an injury or insult in return for one that one has suffered,” Oxford English Dictionary. Wikipedia: “It is an alteration of tip for tap ‘blow for blow,’ first recorded in 1558.”

When Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017 I suspect he was as surprised to be there as anyone. He had been a successful real estate developer, and for thirteen years he hosted “The Apprentice,” a successful reality TV series. But he had never run for political office. As a businessman, he donated to both Jimmy Carter’s and Ronald Reagan’s campaigns in 1980. His political affiliations have changed: a Manhattan Republican in the 1980s; member of the Reform Party in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; and back to a Republican in 2009. By some, he will always be criticized for his changing political affiliations and his out-spoken manner. But he was democratically elected President.

For those who make their living in politics, Donald Trump’s success was a threat. His victory was incredulous to Republicans in the primaries and to Democrats in the general election. How could this “orange-haired” man who garbles the English language have won? How could an interloper beat them at their own game?

America is a different place than it was a generation or two ago. Civility has declined; anti-social and unethical behavior have increased; and violence has become more common and, worse, acceptable. Scam phone calls have risen by over 20% in each of the last five years. In 2023, the United States Capital Police (USCP) investigated 8,008 threats against members of Congress. A disturbing number of young Leftists cheered on the two attempts on Donald Trump’s life, as well as the attacks on Tesla dealerships. Anti-Semitism has increased, On May 21 a young Jewish couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum. Four days later, in Boulder, Colorado, a man shouted, “Free Palestine,” as he threw Molotov cocktails at demonstrators, injuring fifteen men and women, as they marched in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/06/will-trump-weaken-washingtons-power-to-tax/

It’s obvious that Donald Trump is a different president. His divergence from the norm manifests itself in various ways. He’s even broached the possibility of eliminating the Internal Revenue Service. Count us among the tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans who wish him godspeed if he chooses dissolve this truly abusive agency.

Trump’s IRS commissioner nominee Billy Long, whose appointment passed another hurdle Tuesday, might give us a little more insight into Trump’s plans for the IRS. Long, a former Republican House member from Missouri, cosponsored more than a decade ago a bill that would abolish the IRS and enact a national sales tax administered primarily by the states.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed in February that Trump wants “to abolish the Internal Revenue Service.” The president also ordered halted the hiring of 87,000 new IRS employees the Biden administration wanted to sic on Americans.

During the second Obama term, ABC News noted that the “IRS has long history of political dirty tricks,” with presidents using “the agency as a weapon against political enemies.” The story ever-so-lightly touched on the administration’s targeting of conservative groups that opposed Barack Obama’s policies. In this particular instance of corruption, “the former president used the Exempt Organizations division of the IRS to delay or deny the approval of tax-exempt status for more than 100 new organizations between 2010 and 2012,” explains taxpayer advocate Dan Pilla