RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/inauguration-worries-and-unexpected-events/

One week before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, in his final press briefing, outgoing National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made a cryptic comment.

“I hope this is my last time at this podium, at least for a while,” Sullivan said. “The only thing that would bring me back is an unexpected event in the next few days, which, as you all know, is totally possible, given everything you’ve seen over the past years.”

Did Sullivan speak generally or did he have specific situations in mind?

Consider an internal memo sent by Derrick Jaastad, the executive director of the Veterans’ Health Association’s Office of Emergency Management. Dated Dec. 10, the memo requested two paramedics, two registered nurses, and either two physicians, nurse practitioners or physicians’ assistants for the period between January 17 and 21. The volunteers needed up-to-date certifications, experience in surgery or emergencies, and clearance from the Secret Service.

Such a request is unprecedented.

Jaastad’s request and Sullivan’s comments reflect the distinct possibility of violent mayhem preceding the inauguration, if not during the ceremony itself. That mayhem could include another attempt to assassinate Trump.

As in recent inaugurations, Washington, D.C. is on lockdown. Almost 25,000 law enforcement officers — including 8,000 troops from the National Guard — will be responsible for security. Contractors installed nearly 30 miles of security fencing in the city.

“A large chunk of downtown Washington — stretching about two miles from the White House to the Capitol — will be closed to vehicular traffic, with entry points blocked with concrete barriers, garbage trucks and other heavy items,” Reuters reported.

The Department of Energy even is flying special helicopters over the city to measure radiation levels in case terrorists plan to plant a small nuclear weapon. The department’s Nuclear Energy Support Team conducted similar flights between Dec. 2 and Dec. 13.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/01/20/its-morning-in-america-again/

When Donald Trump takes the oath of office today, he will do something no president has managed in modern times. He’s getting a second chance to make a first impression.

Normally, when a president enters his second term, the country is already tired of him. He’s a lame duck. He struggles with whether to keep certain people on or find fresh blood, which usually results in the B-team taking over. Everyone immediately starts talking about the next presidential race. Scandals tend to surface.

Today, Trump is like a breath of fresh air after a long, dark, and dreary winter. The team he’s assembled is completely new, bursting with top talent eager to kick reforms into high gear. Where incumbents usually take their second terms leisurely, riding on their successes, Trump’s second-term agenda is more aggressive and wide-ranging than his first.

If Trump had won reelection in 2020, the press and his political opposition (we know, we repeat ourselves), would have simply continued to act out the same script – Trump is a dangerous, corrupt, fascist monster who must be stopped. The effort to kick him out of office would have been relentless. Never Trumpers would still be a force in the Republican Party.

Instead, Trump is like the new kid on the block. The terrible Biden years – with the endless string of failures, embarrassments, incompetence, and lies – are finally over. There’s hope in the air again. Hope that food prices will come down. That the government will stop wasting trillions of dollars. That the economy will kick into high gear and optimism will return. Hope that the cancel culture will be canceled and that the people around the president will at least be competent. Trump himself has more energy and enthusiasm – and far more experience – than he had eight years ago.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/will-the-left-disrupt-the-inauguration

Left-wing radicals have been mobilizing near the nation’s capital ahead of the January 20 inauguration, which has been moved indoors. Since summer, we have tracked D.C.’s radical networks—their movements, methods, and potential for violence. After George Floyd’s death in 2020, these groups learned that street protests could yield political gains. Now, with Donald Trump returning to the White House, they’re weighing their options.

This network is decentralized, adaptable, and steeped in organizing social unrest. Black Lives Matter messaging is fading, replaced by anti-Israel rhetoric. As Inauguration Day approaches, Communist militants and members of Antifa-aligned hubs have suggested storming the Capitol, bringing “direct action” to the streets, and obstructing law enforcement. If these demonstrations unfold, they will have been carefully planned and ideologically incited by professionals, some visible, others hidden.

The network spans college professors, nonprofit leaders, and masked and often troubled militants willing to engage in violence. Those less directly involved play a sophisticated inside-outside game, relying on prestigious NGOs to provide financing and logistics while maintaining arm’s length control over the more radical elements, which do the dirty work.

Key components of this infrastructure include legal organizations, violent demonstrators, street medics, propaganda specialists, and safehouses, indoctrination centers, and publications. Though some Antifa-aligned groups from prior riots have gone underground or merged, a core network of the most committed activists—veterans and new recruits alike—remains active and prepared.

This is their unmasking.

The militant Left organizes in the light and in the shadows. In the light, the Left has built a significant above-ground infrastructure that preaches abstract ideals—liberation, justice, equality—but operates with a sharper edge behind the scenes.

This upper level includes organizations such as the Open Society Foundations, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the National Lawyers Guild. These groups support a well-funded network that includes dozens of interlocking organizations, providing a level of legitimate infrastructure and cover for smaller nonprofits and other groups, which sometimes fraternize with street-level activists. (We reached out for comment to most of the groups named in this piece; unless otherwise indicated, they did not respond.)

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/trump-russia-advocacy/2025/01/14/id/1195050/

Former U.S. Senator Gordon Humphrey served on the Foreign Relations and the Armed Services Committees. He publishes a Russian-language YouTube channel, Nashi Emigranti, that tells America’s story to the Russian people.

The Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy document hit the nail on the head. “U.S. efforts to counter the exploitation of information by rivals have been tepid and fragmented.” Ironically, the Russian Academy of Sciences concurs, reporting in 2021 that the U.S. information war structure looks like “a dusty relic of a bygone era.” Both statements are factual and explain why the nation that invented the internet continues to lose the information war to despotic regimes. It should be no surprise that freedom has been retreating around the world for nearly two decades, imperiling our national security.

Nothing has changed significantly since the first Trump administration sounded the alarm. In his second term, with a Republican majority in each House, President-elect Trump has an opportunity to create a 21st century strategic messaging structure that can persuasively tell America’s story to the world while undermining despots by stoking the coals of discontent among those they misruled and abused. Think Putin, Xi, Khamenei, and Kim. The president should seize this new opportunity to put us on the offense in the battle of ideologies, a battle we must win or, in all likelihood, perish as a free and prosperous nation.

Broadly, our adversaries are on the attack, employing every means of hybrid warfare, from outright invasion, as in Ukraine, to sabotage, as in the severing of vital cables in the Baltic; to terrorism, as in the attempt, believed to be Russian, to hide incendiary devices in cargo meant for air shipment to the U.S.; to assassination plots, witness the November federal court indictment of three persons accused of plotting to kill Trump on behalf of Iran. In between increasingly frequent acts of attempted or actual violence, there is the daily poisoning of human minds by disinformation meant to confuse and demoralize. We’ve never faced anything like today’s hybrid war. But we’d better get used to it because it’s here to stay as long as there are evil regimes in the world.

To survive and triumph, we must bring to bear every instrument of national power. Trump has vowed to rebuild our armed forces, restore self-sufficiency in our defense industrial base, and protect essential infrastructure from cyberattacks. Those big programs reflect one of the president’s well-known business principles: Think big. But they will take years to accomplish.