RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/15/june-14-america-on-parade-and-on-edge/

I write on June 14, a full-docket news day. You’ll have heard some of the news. For one thing, June 14 is Flag Day in the United States, an opportunity to rally ’round and ponder the significance of its history and iconography. After all, “the Stars and Stripes” is not merely a heraldic description: it is also a distillation or epitome of a sentiment, a world view, and a political achievement.

June 14 is also the birthday of Donald Trump, the President of the United States. Given his celebration of an “America First” MAGA political program, it seems more than coincidental that he should share his birthday with a national holiday called “Flag Day.”

Ditto the fact that June 14 was the date of Trump’s big military parade in Washington. The date was chosen to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the United States Army. Sclerotic legacy outlets like The Atlantic (“The Shame of Trump’s Parade”) and The New York Times are throwing one of their signature snits about the parade. It’s just like military displays in the Soviet Union and other authoritarian states, they say.

I take the opposite view. I think the parade is both a salutary celebration of the army and a condign expression of American national pride. As the commentator Irving Kristol put it in the 1990s, “There is nothing like a parade to elicit the proper respect for the military from the populace.” I agree.

Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, I note that June 14 was also the day on which some 2000 protests were scheduled to unfold across the nation. What were they protesting? The official title was “No Kings.” The protesters, you see, were claiming that Donald Trump was acting like a king by deploying the police power of the state to deport illegal aliens and to protect the immigration officials tasked with the job. Were the organizers harkening back to the origins of the Roman Republic in 509 BC when Brutus, avenging the death of Lucretia, declared that never again would Rome be ruled by a king? Maybe. It’s possible.

Probably not. In the event, the protests seem to have attracted a motley crew of aging boomers, paid professional protesters, disaffected academics, and confused teenagers.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/lockheed-martin-civil-rights-law-bonuses-race-merit

Many believe that masculine industries, such as military and defense, are naturally immune to left-wing race and gender ideologies. This is mostly a myth. These institutions are organized according to prestige and profit—and when those signals point to “woke,” industry leaders have dutifully followed.

Take America’s largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin. As we have previously reported, after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Lockheed adopted radical DEI policies and, in one instance, required white men in leadership positions to attend a racial reeducation program and atone for their “white male privilege.”

Now, a whistleblower has come forward to claim that Lockheed executives were so committed to DEI policies that they awarded some year-end bonuses based on employees’ skin color, rather than performance—in open violation of civil rights law.

The story began in December 2022, when the whistleblower was preparing recommendations for the aeronautics division’s year-end bonuses. The whistleblower was proud of the work the team had done to calculate awards. But soon after the bonuses were submitted for approval, higher-ups told the whistleblower that there was a problem: the “Comp Adder” list, which named recipients of bonus compensation, had too many white employees on it.

Santiago Bulnes, a vice president who now leads engineering on Lockheed’s F-35 program, wrote an email to the whistleblower. “I got a call from [human resources director] La Wanda [Moorer] last night regarding diversity stats on comp adder,” Bulnes, who did not respond to a request for comment, said. “They took a run at getting your few approved and we’re told that we need to fit in the box. I asked her to send you the list of diversity names to simplify the task of finding the best in the group.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/16/will-bidens-age-related-mental-issues-ever-be-investigated-americans-hope-so-ii-tipp-poll/

he Los Angeles riots, the “No Kings” protests, and Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities have taken attention away from the growing scandal of former President Joe Biden’s age-related mental issues and whether White House aides illegally made decisions on the ailing commander in chief’s behalf.

But the scandal remains and, as the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows, a majority of Americans want an investigation.

It’s a scandal of huge proportions, with the media covering it up and rogue political actors both inside and outside of the White House hiding Biden’s mental problems and, possibly, even making decisions for a president mentally unfit for duty.

A recent book authored by CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios writer Alex Thompson. “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” detailed how underlings exercised presidential power and concealed Biden’s growing mental issues.

“One of the things that really, I think, comes out in our reporting here,” Thompson explained on Fox News, “is that if you believe — and I think a lot of these people do sincerely believe — that Donald Trump was and is an existential threat to democracy, you can rationalize anything, including sometimes doing undemocratic things, which I think is what this person is talking about.”

So, how do Americans feel about this?

The online national I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from May 28-30, asked 1,395 adults the following question: “A new book claims that some White House aides tried to hide President Biden’s mental health problems to prevent Donald Trump from winning reelection. What should be done next about this matter?”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/narcosocialist-prime-minister-delivers-toast-at-soros-abedin-wedding/

Here’s how the New York Times described the scene of a billionaire brat getting married to a woman with more baggage than his father stole from Holocaust victims.

The Democratic establishment descended on the Hamptons this weekend for something of a political royal wedding that brought together the worlds of big-money politics and Clinton-era insiders.

Beyond the couple’s families, the guest list included Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton; former Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff; Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader; former Speaker Nancy Pelosi; celebrities like Nicky Hilton Rothschild; cultural figures like the Vogue editor Anna Wintour; longtime Clinton friends like the San Francisco power broker Susie Tompkins Buell; and foreign dignitaries like the prime minister of Albania, Edi Rama.

The weekend festivities included a smaller ceremony to honor both Ms. Abedin’s Muslim faith and Mr. Soros’s Jewish heritage.

As Maseratis, Porsches and other luxury cars glided down the road outside the wedding venue, some curious drivers slowed down before security officers quickly shooed them along.

The vocal group Boyz II Men performed at the wedding, according to two of the attendees, and speakers giving toasts included Mr. Soros’s brother Jonathan, Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Wintour and Mr. Rama.

Why was the Albanian Prime Minister even there, let alone delivering a toast? The Soros clan pumped an estimated $130 million into Albania to prop up Rama’s regime. Rama, the head of the country’s Socialist movement, has been described as a ‘narco-socialist’ and Albania is considered to be awash in corruption.

So he fits in perfectly at a ‘royal wedding’ for an alliance of the Clinton-Ikhwan and Soros clans.