About theartfuldilettante

The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.

Democrats Gone Wild

Posted on July 4, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

By Robin M. Itzler

Democrats suffering from severe cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) are now displaying another symptom: staging ill-conceived confrontations to get street cred with their antifa progressive base. Some recent headlines:

North Carolina state Rep. Julie von Haefen attended a “No Kings” protest and was photographed holding what appeared to be an effigy of the decapitated heads of Trump and his senior policy advisor, Stephen Miller.
U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver was charged in a three-count indictment for forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers—all seen on video.
New York City Mayoral candidate Brad Lander got the publicity he desired by trying to help illegal alien criminals by allegedly assaulting a federal law enforcement officer.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested as he and other elected Democrats allegedly tried to break into the Delaney Hall detention facility.
California Senator Alex Padilla started shouting when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was giving a speech in Los Angeles. Because he was not wearing credentials showing that he is a sitting U.S. senator, law enforcement physically removed the threatening Padilla. Almost on cue, Governor Gavin “Hair Gel” Newsom made a statement about what happened. Then, as predictable as the sun rising in the east, Padilla gave tearful interviews on MSNBC and other leftist “news” organizations. Of course, he cried on the senate floor…oh, the inhumanity!

Democrat juvenile behavior began in earnest during President Trump’s March 4 speech to a joint session of Congress. New York City Democrat Council Member Robert Holden, who represents District 30 in Queens, expressed it best as he opened his March 6 op-ed with:

As a lifelong Democrat, I never imagined I would watch my own party embarrass itself so thoroughly—and so publicly—as it did during Tuesday’s joint session of Congress.

Was there a memo to Democrats telling them to start accosting people? In “Can the Left Ever Stop Its Craziness,” Victor Davis Hanson says the left won’t stop its two-year-old tantrums, especially when they’re directed at President Trump, because they don’t understand how else to act.

Democrats behaving in ways that never before would have been acceptable for American politicians isn’t just happening in major cities. I live in a small Orange County, California, city of nearly 50,000 residents, and I recently had a 1:1 confrontation with our mayor. Before you roll your eyes at “California,” there are many pockets of conservative-leaning areas throughout this state of nearly 40 million residents. Yet, as more conservatives vote with their feet, red California cities are turning purple and eventually blue.

No one was arrested during our run-in, but in my opinion, it was just another example of an elected Democrat official displaying a lack of respect and acting more like a two-year-old child than a mature adult.

As to my incident, until recently, few people knew or cared what political party our city council members belonged to as long as Cypress was well managed—and it had been for decades under majority Republican leadership. Past city councils had Democrats, Republicans, and/or Independents, and Cypress thrived with an outstanding business corridor and a well-maintained middle-class community. However, some residents believe things started to change for the worse several years ago when a disruptive Democrat was elected to the city

Seeing what was happening in our city and having free speech in America, a diverse group of residents came together and founded Keep Cypress United to support candidates, propositions, and issues that we believe will keep Cypress united as a welcoming community to live or work. The group is self-funded and does not seek or accept outside donations.

On May 22, a fellow Keep Cypress United (KCU) member and I were standing outside a local supermarket distributing a flyer that questioned statements and actions taken by the newly appointed Cypress mayor. Hizzoner currently holds this mostly ceremonial position because, for the first time ever, the council comprises a Democrat majority. Despite living in our community for only three years, he leapfrogged into the positions over the heads of colleagues with decades of residency.

One of the recipients of our flyer must have been Hizzoner’s supporter. Within 20 minutes after we started our flyer campaign, Hizzoner rushed over to the supermarket and wanted to know what I was doing. (At the time, he probably didn’t realize another KCU member was at the other entrance.) My perception was that he was very angry, as he challenged me about questioning his position and votes on multiple issues.

Think about it—the mayor hastily drove to the neighborhood supermarket wanting to know why a resident was questioning his comments or actions! I was shocked, but shouldn’t have been considering what Democrats in California and around the country are doing with regularity: public tantrums and public histrionics for their own benefit and aligned

Then, after taking a photo of the handout, Hizzoner abruptly left. Then about 20 minutes later, he came back! This time, he wanted to meet with me. A few days later, I emailed him about the possibility of a meeting with me and another KCU member.

Bear in mind, I am an almost 70-year-old female (yes, biological female) and legally deaf without the assistance of hearing aids. It is reasonable that I would want to be accompanied to a meeting with Hizzoner, who is a thirty-something male who made me feel very uncomfortable. Before he would discuss dates at a local coffee house, Hizzoner insisted on knowing why I would not meet with him 1:1.

I told him that I felt that politicians should not wrangle with constituents who are exercising their right to free speech in a local supermarket. I added,

Every elected official (from the president to a small city mayor) whose policies are criticized will claim that false statements (aka misinformation) are being made. It’s POLITICS!

I ended the email by saying that my level of discomfort with our interaction was such that “I will ask someone to attend with me as I do not feel comfortable meeting with you 1:1.”

After several emails as to the date, time, and location, Hizzoner stated that if I planned to bring someone with me, then he would have no choice but to bring someone with him, despite the meeting occurring at a public coffee shop. Oh, for goodness’ sake, the guy is an elected official, and he’s afraid to meet with two constituents who have issues with some of his statements and votes? Fuhgeddaboudit!

I sent an official grievance about Hizzoner’s rude actions to the Cypress city administrator. His response was that I should go to the police. Was that a small city version of New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul dismissing charges against Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander?

If Hizzoner could drive over to the supermarket twice because some constituents do not agree with his positions/votes, perhaps Hizzoner might soon give a long speech on the city council floor about me and Keep Cypress United just as New Jersey Senator Cory Booker did on the senate floor ridiculously railing against President Trump and the Republican Party. (If you missed Booker’s stunt, don’t worry, his book is coming out soon!)

Conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings said:

What they’re doing is clearly creating stunts. These are political stunts. I mean, this is designed to us. It’s sort of like porn for their base. There’s a lot of capital right now in the Democratic Party for getting arrested.

From rural towns to small cities to major metropolises, it appears the latest Democrat Party strategy is to verbally and/or physically confront those with different views. Perhaps because my confrontation with Hizzoner wasn’t caught on video, it didn’t culminate as most of those interactions do; that is, with the politician immediately thereafter having a public tantrum, and crying that he or she is being treated unfairly after the childish and unprofessional displays in response to constructive criticism and legitimate questions by constituents and residents.

Robin M. Itzler is a regular contributor to American Thinker. She is the founder and editor of Patriot Neighbors, a free weekly national newsletter. Robin can be reached at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com.

God and the Declaration of Independence

Posted on July 3, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Soon, another Fourth of July will be upon us. What do we celebrate on the Fourth of July? Of course, it’s America’s birthday—dating back to 1776. That’s when 56 men agreed by voice vote for the final wording of our nation’s birth certificate….the Declaration of Independence. A month later they began to sign it.

Samuel Adams said at that signing on August 1, 1776: “We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought and dignity of self-direction which he bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may his kingdom come!”

In an Oxford University Press book on this often-neglected founding father, author Benjamin H. Irvin, writes: “The Declaration of Independence represented in many ways the culmination of Samuel Adams’s life work.”

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the first major draft of the Declaration of Independence, penned a letter years later to Samuel Adams on March 29, 1801. He said that as he approached matters of state, he would ask himself: “[I]s this in keeping with the words of Sam Adams, the patriarch of liberty?”

Although many people today try to minimize the role of God in our nation’s founding, the fact is that the Lord is mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence.

For example, the Declaration mentions the importance of conforming to natural law, as it refers to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”

Sir William Blackstone, noted 18^th century British legal authority, was cited by the founding fathers many times and has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court throughout our history. He wrote the following before the Declaration mentioned “the laws of nature and of nature’s God”: “Thus, when the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, He impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart…This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.”

The Declaration also says that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their CREATOR with unalienable rights. Somebody may claim that that is not a significant remark. Perhaps it was just a meaningless sop from the founders to placate the Christian populace back home that they represented.

The extensive writings of the founders contradict that notion. And rejecting God as the source of our rights can be fatal. The 20^th century was the bloodiest century in the annals of history. In the 1900s, humanity saw the rise of totalitarian governments, which were explicitly anti-God, such as the Communists or the National Socialists, where they did NOT acknowledge God-given rights—and millions died as a result.

A few years ago, a museum opened up in Washington, D.C., that commemorates those killed by the Communists. In the 20^th century alone, the figures were staggering.

The museum website notes, “The Victims of Communism Museum is dedicated to commemorating the more than 100 million people killed by Communism around the world and to those pursuing freedom from totalitarian regimes.”

They also write: “Witness the rise of Communism, the terror of Lenin and Stalin, the growth of the tragic Gulag system, the eastward expansion of Communism, and share in the inspiring stories of those fighting against the most deadly ideology man has ever created.” Communism explicitly rejected God, and attempted to build a manmade utopia.

But what about the victims of National Socialism, better known as the Nazis, in Germany? Some people try to blame Christianity for the rise of Nazis—despite all the Christians who risked their lives and paid the ultimate price in opposition to Nazi Germany.

But this distorts the record, as the Nazis were also explicitly anti-God. Adolf Hitler once said, “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew.”

In a third reference to God in the Declaration, the framers said that they have no recourse but to appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of [their] intentions.” Dr. Peter Lillback, founder of Providence Forum, notes that since the vast majority of the founders were professing Christians, and since they were well-versed in the Bible, and since the Scriptures teach that Jesus is the Judge of the world, this is a reference to Jesus in the Declaration of Independence.

The final reference to the Almighty is at the end of the document, where they say that they were relying on the help of Divine Providence. Providence is an old-fashioned way of referring to the Biblical God, who answers prayer.

The framers declared independence from Great Britain, but at the same time, they declared dependence upon Almighty God. So Happy Birthday, America.

Dr. Jerry Newcombe

Hamburger Steak Vs. Salisbury: What’s The Real Difference?

Posted on July 3, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Ever wondered why exactly a Salisbury steak tastes so different from a hamburger patty, even though they kind of appear to be the same thing? While each of these classic dishes can be delicious in their own right, typically, a hamburger patty is simply a formed patty made of beef. Depending on the cook, a hamburger patty may be seasoned with a little salt and pepper, or might just be a straight-up, unseasoned piece of formed ground beef. Salisbury steak, however, is more than just a bun-less hamburger. Created by Dr. James H. Salisbury at the end of the 19th century, the now-beloved comfort food was designed to support the gut health of Civil War soldiers, many of whom were dying in droves due to digestive illnesses. Salisbury theorized that a diet rich in beef and coffee could lessen the stomach problems soldiers were having in the field. While Dr. Salisbury’s theories didn’t hold up over time, his namesake steak has remained a staple in the diets of many Americans.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, products sold as Salisbury steak have to contain at least 65% meat, with up to 25% of a Salisbury steak’s meat content coming from pork. The remaining ingredients may include bread crumbs, rolled oats, oat flakes, tomato purée, gravy, and more. While a Salisbury steak certainly does contain beef, its typical ingredient profile is closer to a slice of meatloaf than it is to a plain hamburger patty.

How to make your Salisbury steak distinct from hamburger patties

Whether you already have a classic Salisbury steak recipe you know and love or you’re considering making the comfort food at home for the first time, you’ve got options. The dish is highly customizable, and with a little experimenting, you can find the perfect method for creating a Salisbury steak to come back to time and again.

Play around with seasonings in your recipe. Try going beyond the standard brown sugar, salt, and pepper blend by adding cajun seasoning, garlic powder, or paprika (or try smoked paprika to create a different, more savory flavor profile). Binding agents also leave room for customization, as does gravy. While Salisbury steak is traditionally served with mushroom gravy, caffeinated red-eye gravy is a fun twist (and gives a nod to Dr. Salisbury’s theory that a coffee-heavy diet was ideal next to Salisbury steak). In the mood for something a bit more indulgent? Dredging your Salisbury steaks in seasoned flour before frying in a pan with a bit of oil can add an unexpected bit of crunch that elevates your recipe. This tip also works super-well if you’re working with frozen Salisbury steaks and want to transform them into a hearty family dinner.

Amanda Berkey, Chowhound

With Zohran Mamdani On The Cusp of Becoming Mayor, NYC Embraces Its Own Demise

Posted on July 3, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

By Vince Coyner

As y child of the Cold War with the Soviets as America’s enemy, when the wall came down and the threat of Communism faded, I was under the illusion that the world had inexorably turned a corner and that history was on the march to bring freedom, capitalism, and prosperity to the whole world.

The events of September 11 exposed that illusion for what it really was: a delusion. There were actually people out there who wanted to start a war with the United States.

With 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Islam went from an almost nonexistent issue for most Americans to front and center. Suddenly, Islam and Muslims are in the news on a daily basis, doing unspeakable things to one another and others.

Image created using AI.

Knowing nothing of this threat and wanting to know more, I picked up books like Dore Gold’s Hatred’s Kingdom and Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims, and even a copy of the Koran, which, honestly, I couldn’t get through. And I read a lot more online from guys like Steve Emerson, Robert Spencer, and David Horowitz.

Over the following years, you had everything from the Shoe Bomber to the Ft. Hood shooter to the San Bernardino attack and countless others. And elsewhere in the West, you had everything from the murder of Theo Van Gogh to the London 7/7 attacks, the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and others. It seemed like Islam was at war against the entire world

But a funny thing happened on the way to the news, despite everything we were seeing with our own eyes, the blood, the carnage, the innocent victims, we were told that Islam wasn’t the problem. Instead, the problem was the individual terrorists who just happened to be Muslim. “Islam isn’t violent,” we were told, despite the fact that most of the wars going on in the world involve Muslims, and the Koran itself both directs and allows killing in Allah’s name. Seemingly, we see Muslim violence everywhere, but we’re told that there’s no connection to Islam, even though most of the time the perpetrators actually invoke Allah’s name during their attacks.

So the West, seeking to demonstrate its lack of “Islamophobia,” decided to open the floodgates to Muslims from around the world with the blind expectation that they would integrate into Western societies—despite decades of proof showing the exact opposite. That held for the United States as well. You visit places like Dearborn, Michigan, or Minneapolis, Minnesota, or increasingly even places as far afield as Texas, and it sometimes feels like you’re not actually in America.

But if one looks, it’s not hard to understand why. For the West, for most of the last 500 years, there have been two poles seeking to influence life: the state and the church. The result of that pull between the state and Christianity is a civilization with extraordinary scientific and economic advancement, unprecedented levels of individual freedom, and the miraculous levels of prosperity that came with them.

But for Islam, there is no such separation. There is one law, and it covers everything. Freedom of speech and religion don’t exist. Both are tolerated when the number of Muslims is small in a nation, in part because speech benefits Muslims, but once the numbers grow, speech is strangled, for it no longer helps them. About 15 years ago, Evangelist Peter Hammond demonstrated how this works:

1. As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens.

2. At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.

3. From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarkets to feature halal on their shelves—along with threats for failure to comply.

4. When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions.

There’s more, but you get the point. Couple that with the fact that Islam has basically been on a 1400-year quest to take over the world, and one wonders why Western leaders not only opened up their countries to followers of an ideology that literally seeks their destruction, but funded them, too!

Islam’s not a religion; it’s a supremacist, expansionist, and tyrannical ideology that is anathema to the very foundations of Western civilization. Don’t take my word for it. Take the words of Imams across the West. They seek to use demographics to overwhelm natives politically, then impose a caliphate. Very soon, Western leaders are going to have to confront the fact that they have injected their polity with a virus that seeks to kill it.

Europe successfully defended itself against the first Islamic invasion in 732, thanks to the leadership that the French Duke Charles Martel provided at Tours. It did so again in Vienna in 1683, with King John III Sobieski of Poland taking the lead. Those men were true leaders.

Today, with few exceptions, the West is led by cowards and traitors to their civilizations, more interested in being feted by their fellow globalists than in defending their heritage. Indeed, today, Europe isn’t even fighting for itself. It’s invited the enemy into its bosom and allowed him to thrive.

Why? White guilt, of course. To the point that the West will literally sacrifice its daughters so as not to be called Islamophobic. Across the West, we’ve seen Hammond’s observations play themselves out. Sweden, formerly one of the safest countries in the world is today overwhelmed with rapes and bombings, and native Swedes aren’t responsible. Is any Western city better off for having invited in hundreds of thousands of Muslims? London? Paris? Amsterdam? No. The story is the same across Europe, yet most “leaders” pretend otherwise.

Winston Churchill, a son of Britain and America, understood the threat. While he admitted “Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities,” he knew the score. “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.”

And why does any of this matter? New York, of course. One need only look at the dystopian nightmare that London has become to understand what lies ahead for New York. Once America’s greatest city, the disaster it already is has been driven by grievance, victimization, and illegal immigration. And now the guilt-ridden college-educated whites have essentially elected a terrorist supporting communist as mayor.

This does not bode well for freedom, prosperity, New York, or America. Freedom of speech and religion are literally written into our founding documents. They are fundamental to our nation. Islam tolerates neither. At the end of the day, Islam is not a religion; it’s an ideology that seeks to overthrow the West. It’s well on its way in Europe. We should not allow it to do so here.

Follow Vince on X at @ImperfectUSA

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LA Mayor Humiliatingly Announces Her City Is So Covered in Graffiti that It Might Not Be Ready to Host the World Cup

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

In an embarrassing moment, woke Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass admitted that her city was in such bad shape following the anti-ICE riots that it might not be ready to host the World Cup, pointing to how much graffiti had been left behind by rioters acting out in opposition to President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

For background, on June 10, 2025, LA Mayor Karen Bass reflected on the impact of the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests that broke out on June 6 and culminated in the dispatching of the National Guard and the Marines by President Trump. During the conference, Mayor Bass admitted that there was such “extensive” graffiti that Los Angeles might not be prepared to host an event as significant as the 2026 World Cup.

During the press conference, Mayor Bass began by saying that the city had “not received words (sic) of raids” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, adding, ” I think you all understand that the city is not notified when ICE goes to a workplace. What we rely on, frankly, is reporting from the communityespecially the immigrant rights organizations that have formed the rapid response network.”

Continuing, Mayor Bass conceded that the “violence we saw last night,” referring to the protests, was “unacceptable,” adding, “I do not believe that individuals that commit vandalism and violence in our city really are in support of immigrants. They have another agenda. If you support immigrants and the rights of immigrants to be in our city, you would not be tearing the city apart or vandalizing it.”

In addition, the mayor tried to downplay the significance and severity of the riots, saying, “Those of us in Los Angeles understand that the unrest that has happened are a few blocks within the downtown area. It is not all of downtown, and it is not all of the city. She continued, “Unfortunately, the visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case at all. I think it’s important to say that.”

Then, Mayor Bass touched on the subject of “the violence and damage” caused by the riots, which she again described as “unacceptable,” saying, “It is not going to be tolerated, and individuals will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No individual that is involved in vandalism should think bee they went home that night that they’re off scot-free, because investigations will take place.”

Embarrassingly, the mayor then admitted that the “extensive vandalism downtown,” specifying “the graffiti that is just blanking a number of blocks” might stop the city from hosting the World Cup, saying, “This is about beautifying our city and bringing our city together. I am calling on business leaders, community leaders, faith leaders to come together downtown in the next few days to talk about how we are going to clean up the city.”

The mayor added that “city workers are already out there removing the graffiti,” but she clarified, “This is so extensive it’s going to take community-wide involvement.” The mayor then said, “We need people from all over the city to come to downtown and to help with this effort.”

Tom Arends, American Tribune

Mamdani apologists play the fake Islamophobia card.

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Mamdani apologists play the fake Islamophobia card. The liberal media and others spin attempts to call out the Democratic mayoral nominee’s hatred for Israel as hatred for Muslims.

It didn’t take long for the Democratic Party’s media cheering section to demonstrate how far the Overton Window had moved among liberals with respect to antisemitism. Centrist Democrats and the liberal Jewish establishment were genuinely shocked by Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic Party mayoral primary in New York City. Within days, however, it was clear that legacy outlets reflecting mainstream opinion on the political left weren’t going to tolerate much in the way of criticism of his extremist views about Israel and the Jews.

Within days, it was clear that anyone who claimed that Mamdani should be rejected out of hand as a possible mayor of New York on the grounds of stands that were, at best, antisemitism-adjacent or, at worst, open endorsements of Jewish genocide, rather than the candidate himself, were going to be the ones under fire. Within 48 hours of Mamdani’s win, The New York Times was already using the word “Islamophobic” in headlines to describe his critics.

Legitimizing antisemitism

It is fear among Democrats about being labeled as Islamophobic that explains why so few prominent members of the party and officeholders are refusing to condemn Mamdani now that the 33-year-old New York state representative has become their party’s nominee. That’s not just smoothing his path to victory for a fellow Democrat, despite the horror that many New Yorkers feel about him. It’s also achieving something the political left has been assiduously working toward, especially since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023: the legitimization of antisemitism in the American public square.

Jonathan S. Tobin

Settler-Colonialist Zohran Mamdani Calls For “Seizing The Means Of Production”

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Last week I invited readers to get a good laugh out of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to avert impending energy disaster by green-lighting one nuclear power plant that optimistically might solve 5% of the problem when it is ready to operate in the 2050s. Now this week brings an even superior farce: A video clip has emerged of our settler-colonialist Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calling for “seizing the means of production.”

Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary has led researchers to dredge up a treasure trove of his old tweets and video clips, each one more ridiculous than the next. An excellent roundup can be found here at Legal Insurrection . Some choice examples include: “VioIence is an artificial construct”; “Under capitalism, housing is a commodity from which landlords & developers extract huge profits while our communities suffer eviction, foreclosure & displacement.”; “We need to dramatically curtail the power & presence of the NYPD.”; and “[A] statue of Columbus remains in Astoria, in defiance of the values of humanity, empathy & justice that we stand for.”

But my favorite is a clip from a speech Mamdani gave at a Democratic Socialists of America conference in 2021. The New York Post today quotes some excerpts from the speech, among them Mamdani’s statements that issues socialists “firmly believe in,” include “boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel” and “the end goal of seizing the means of production.”

“Seizing the means of production” — now there’s a retro concept. The “means of production” was good commie talk back in the 19th century, when Karl Marx and his followers looked around and saw things like steel mills, railroad engine factories, iron foundries, coal mines, textile mills, and other such big facilities to make lots of stuff. It seemed obvious that those facilitie were where the greedy capitalists got their wealth.

But has Mamdani even looked around the New York City of today? What even exists today that you could call a “means of production”?

In New York City today, we produce almost nothing that is tangible. I wonder if Mamdani has noticed that.

In May 2016 I did a big post with lots of research titled “The Devastation Of New York City’s Economy.” The post documented the complete transformation of New York City’s economy from the 1950s to the time of the post, and in particular the almost complete disappearance of manufacturing. As noted in the post, in the aftermath of World War II, New York City’s economy had over 1 million manufacturing jobs, distributed among some 37,000 different companies. Those companies and people made a huge variety of products, most famously women’s clothing, where New York City was completely dominant and supported about 231,000 jobs. By the time of the post in 2016, the total number of manufacturing jobs in New York City in all industries was down to about 80,000. According to the most recent statistics from the New York State Department of Labor, the current number of manufacturing jobs in the City (May 2025) is only 57,700. That’s out of total private-sector employment of some 4,248,300.

Such manufacturing as continues to exist in New York City is reduced to a few specialized niches. For example, there continue to be specialized clothing manufacturers to make things like costumes for Broadway shows and samples for runway fashion shows. Are their sewing machines what Mamdani means by the “means of production”?

In the way of mass production of physical goods for human consumption, almost none of it occurs in New York City. Food? Obviously, we don’t grow that here. Clothing? Almost certainly, nothing in your wardrobe or mine was manufactured in New York City. Housing or other buildings? They are put together on site, but the materials almost all come from elsewhere (structural concrete is one exception). Automobiles? There are no assembly plants in the five boroughs; and if you know of a manufacturer of some kind of parts for the auto industry in New York City, I would like to learn of it.

But aren’t there some kind of “means of production” to make all the wealth that gets generated in the hundreds of big office buildings in Manhattan? I would love to see Mamdani’s plans to seize whatever this may be. When he sends in his shock troops to make the seizures, all he’s going to find are a bunch of laptops no different from what you could get at the Apple store.

How about the investment bankers and traders and hedge funders who make millions of dollars per year dealing in the capital markets? I suppose that their “means of production” mainly consists of the proprietary software that they use in their businesses. The bankers may know how to make big money using this software, but seized and distributed among the masses, it would be almost completely useless. It’s really quite funny to contemplate.

Anyway, these are the levels of ignorance and foolishness that we are dealing with.

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

It’s the Spending, Stupid

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

The brilliant free market economist Ludwig von Mises said it best, nearly a century ago:

“The advocates of public control cannot do without inflation. They need it in order to finance their policy of reckless spending and of lavishly subsidizing and bribing the voters.”

“Inflation is an increase in the quantity of money without a corresponding increase in the demand for money, i.e., for cash holdings.”

“Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism .”

“Inflation has always been an important resource of policies of war and revolution and why we also find it in the service of socialism.”

“If one regards inflation as an evil, then one has to stop inflating. One has to balance the budget of the government.”

The issue isn’t whether to be FOR or AGAINST the “big beautiful bill.” The issue is that this bill — as with any bill the Congress passes without addressing spending — is impossible to achieve without continued inflation.

Put it this way: The government cannot tax us at 90 or 100 percent; if they did, there probably would be a revolution, and the economy would collapse overnight. Neither will the government cut spending — not even a little. So the only option left? Keep increasing the spending while increasing the supply of money via the Federal Reserve. As von Mises wrote: Inflation is a policy, not a symptom. Politicians are doing this to us on purpose, to maintain and increase their power (and personal wealth).

The Trump administration had the right idea with DOGE. But as we learned, in the end, you cannot cut government spending without Congress cutting the spending.

The Congress does not appear willing to cut spending. Not even a Republican Congress claiming to be aligned with MAGA, which (Trump has demonstrated) does support massive cuts in federal spending (and power).

Sooner or later, we’ll have to face this fact. Either inflation will get so out of control and bother people so badly, through the despair and impoverishment it brings, that government will finally cut spending (as they’re now attempting in Argentina); or our Congress and politicians will start to become more rational and cut spending without waiting for a financial calamity.

I’m not betting on the latter.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

So now it’s a Muslim Marxist to lead New York: A requiem

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

So now it’s a Muslim Marxist to lead New York: A requiem

By Eric Utter

New York has fallen.

At the very least, New York City has collapsed.

If Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should someday soon be kicked out of Persia, it is possible he could come to New York, where he would likely be elected mayor.

The sequence of NYC mayors is astounding.

From Guliani to Bloomberg to de Blasio to Adams.

And perhaps soon to Zohran Mamdani, an avowed Marxist who has previously indicated his desire to “globalize the intifada.” (Mamdani defeated three-term ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the June 24^th mayoral primary.)

How to make a sh*thole city in four easy steps!

The Chief of Police for the NYPD has already stated that, should Mamdani be elected, his pro-crime anti-cop policies would cause mass exodus from the city’s police force. The resultant effect would be catastrophic.

The Big Apple, not so long ago, was one of the safest big cities in the world. Now it is rotten to its core. “My kind of town,” “The city that never sleeps,” etc., is now no place for “infidels.” And a city that ever weeps. A sanctuary city for criminals. An asylum for the insane and outlandish.

When I set out writing this article, I did not intend to reference a musical piece. However, after reading that, should Mamdani win the general election, New York might well surrender its status as the financial hub of the U.S. to Miami, I had to include a few lines from the Billy Joel song, “Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)”

I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the ruins at my feet

You can see it coming in so many ways. The Empire City is no more. And, from a future perspective:

null

You know those lights were bright on Broadway
That was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico
There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive
To tell the world about
The way the lights went out
And keep the memory alive

I fear Billy was just off by about a decade.

What’s next for Gotham City? Today’s fun—if tragic—fact: the term “Gotham” was borrowed from the English village of “Gotham,” known for its “simple-minded fools.”

If the shoe fits.

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