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.

The Verdict is in : Biden is to Blame

Posted on May 18, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

For Democrats, there’s no escaping (for now) the Biden hangover from 2024.

The verdict is in. Joe Biden is to blame. So too are the advisers who protected him in the White House by hiding his frailties. Together they unwittingly choreographed the comeback of President Donald Trump. The country is living with the consequences, and the Democratic Party is looking for a way out of the wilderness.

That, at least, is the underlying charge of books about the 2024 election. The one drawing the most attention is the newest, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.” Written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson, the book will not be released until Tuesday, but prepublication excerpts have made waves…..

Biden isolated from Cabinet members and lawmakers in the latter years of his presidency. Biden’s workdays reduced in hours. Biden tethered to a teleprompter even at intimate fundraisers. Advisers fearful that another fall could require him to use a wheelchair in a second term.

The portrait of his inner circle is as damning. Key advisers and family members are described as shielding the president to a fault, dismissive of any suggestion that he was failing. When a report from special counsel Robert K. Hur described Biden as “a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” his handlers (and the president) were indignant. Was all this hubris, blind loyalty, a conspiracy of silence? That depends on where you sit……

Some Democrats are angry that the focus has fixed on Biden’s decline rather than what they see as admirable accomplishments in office. Others simply find it a distraction from the business of battling with Trump. Biden has added to the drama by publicly challenging the conclusions of authors, as he seeks to shape a legacy tarnished by the closing months of his presidency.

The Tapper-Thompson book isn’t the only one out there. “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, made a splash when it was released in early April. “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” by Chris Whipple, included startling descriptions from Ron Klain, Biden’s former White House chief of staff, about the president’s woeful preparations ahead of his terrible debate. “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” by (former and current colleagues) Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf, will be released in July.

These portraits of a Biden in decline are something that the world saw at his disastrous debate with Trump on June 27. That halting performance prompted his decision to withdraw and elevate Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee, which many Democrats believe doomed her to a short and unsuccessful campaign.

Even in the days after the debate, let alone the months prior, most Democratic lawmakers were reluctant to call publicly for Biden’s withdrawal. A story in the Wall Street Journal sometime before the debate, charting Biden’s decline, drew a pile-on from the White House and many Democratic officials (and some in the media) for relying on mostly Republican sources.

Why did he not? Pride is one answer. Stubbornness another. The reluctance to cede power, especially the ultimate power on the planet. A belief that only he could stop Trump from winning again. A lack of confidence in Harris to lead the party in the election, a view expressed by presidential advisers to some on the outside who pleaded that Biden should not seek a second term. A belief that even a dramatically diminished Biden would be safer for the country than Trump. A belief that — despite polls showing him losing to Trump — he could still win, though other strategists saw no such path, given voters who thought he was too old for another term. Biden still asserts that had he been on the ballot, he would have defeated Trump.

Biden might have drawn a primary challenge had it not been for the 2022 midterm elections, which, though narrowly lost by Democrats, went better than they had expected. As Biden claimed a moral victory in the aftermath, potential challengers melted away, ultimately denying the party a test between Biden and those of a younger generation.

Some who were urged to run, according to a Democrat who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, demurred. They did not want to be blamed for so weakening Biden in a primary that Trump could win the election. Had Biden been challenged in the primaries and forced to debate other Democrats, would his frailties have emerged early enough to force him out of the race? That was the thinking of some who hoped to see a competitive nomination contest.

When Biden finally quit the race, Harris had too many hurdles to overcome in a short time. Some Democrats believe she could have won, had she run a different kind of campaign. Others still doubt she could have surmounted the dissatisfaction with Biden and an opaque profile that left her vulnerable to attack. She is currently mulling her future, with another run for president and a campaign for governor of California among her choices.

The anger at Biden for choosing to run in the first place is still white-hot among some Democrats. David Plouffe, who helped Barack Obama win two elections and was brought in to advise the Harris campaign, is quoted by Tapper and Thompson as saying of Biden, “He totally f—ed us.” That kind of fury from a strategist toward a president of his or her party is rare. Such is the fallout from this episode.

The focus on Biden comes at an awkward time for the Democratic Party, which should be looking forward rather than backward. Some Democrats are angry that the focus has fixed on Biden’s decline rather than what they see as admirable accomplishments in office. Others simply find it a distraction from the business of battling with Trump. Biden has added to the drama by publicly challenging the conclusions of authors, as he seeks to shape a legacy tarnished by the closing months of his presidency. Many Democrats wish he would stay out of view.

For now, there is no escaping this excavation of the final months of Biden’s presidency. The question is whether Democrats will use Biden as an excuse to ignore deeper problems that helped Trump prevail in 2024 and that continue to hamper them as they try to make a comeback of their own — issues of the party’s tattered coalition, of identity politics, and most important its economic priorities and program. That debate has barely started, to the dismay of many in the party.

Dan Balz, Washington Post

Dems Seen as “Liberal, Weak, Corrupt”

Posted on May 17, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Political commentator Chris Cillizza says “polls showing that only a third of registered Democrats are optimistic about their Party strike me as very problematic. This is especially troublesome compared to polls showing that 55% of Republicans are optimistic about their Party. With most of the media attempting to paint the Republicans as an existential threat to democracy I find it remarkable that its partisans can be so optimistic. Not only are most Democrats lacking optimism, they also use words like liberal, weak, and corrupt to describe how their standard bearers are perceived by the general public.”

House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) admitted “those terms don’t sound very attractive or heroic, but I would argue that the majority of humanity would be most accurately described in exactly those terms. In this respect the Democratic Party does represent this majority of the population. We are liberal with public funds in our efforts to redistribute the wealth more equitably between those who earn it and those who need it. We are champions of the weaker elements of our society who can’t sustain their desired lifestyle without the support of the government. And many of our leaders have been caught in corrupt endeavors to use their public office for personal enrichment. However, I would argue that this is a perfectly reasonable response to an unfair world. The trick will be to convince voters that we are the true guardians of their interests.”

“It’ll have to be a pretty good trick,” Cillizza said. “A recent poll by Emerson College/Pix 11/the Hill found that President Trump breaks even among the voters in New Jersey–a traditional stronghold for Democrats–with a 47% approval vs a 47% disapproval rating. In contrast, Gov Phil Murphy (D) is underwater with a 40% approval and 45% disapproval rating. In the 2024 election Kamala Harris carried the state by a 6% margin over Trump. In 2020 Joe Biden carried the state by a margin of 16% over Trump. Surely, such a trend has to be concerning for Democrats?”

“Trump may be riding high now,” Jeffries observed, “but we’re making inroads against his unconstitutional efforts to deport foreign criminals. Numerous federal district courts have sided with us on this issue and are blocking his authority to carry out his campaign promise to get these people out of the country. We’re also having similar success against Trump’s efforts to reduce government waste, corruption, and abuse. These courts are ordering him to rehire government employees that he’s fired and restore federal grants that he’s canceled. As voters come to recognize that he cannot fulfill his campaign promises they’ll come home to the Democratic Party.”

John Semmens

Trump Reshaping World This Past Week

Posted on May 17, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Just this past weekend Trump reshaped the world:

Brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan
Brokered and in-person meeting between Ukraine and Russia
Announced trade agreement between US and China
Signed executive order to slash prices on prescription drugs
Hamas agreed to release the last known American hostage in Gaza
Signed executive order for self-deportation program for free flights and financial incentives for illegal aliens to leave the USA
Signed executive order establishing National Center for Warrior Independence to house up to 6,000 homeless veterans by 2028

Experts Leaving Government in Droves

Posted on May 17, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

At the National Institutes of Health, six directors — from institutes focused on infectious disease, child health, nursing research and the human genome — are leaving or being forced out.

At the Federal Aviation Administration, nearly a dozen top leaders, including the chief air traffic officer, are retiring early.

And at the Treasury Department, more than 200 experienced managers and highly skilled technical experts who help run the government’s financial systems chose to accept the Trump administration’s resignation offer earlier this year, according to a staffer and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Across the federal government, a push for early retirement and voluntary separation is fueling a voluntary exodus of experienced, knowledgeable staffers unlike anything in living memory, according to interviews with 18 employees across 10 agencies and records reviewed by The Post. Other leaders with decades of service are being dismissed as the administration eliminates full offices or divisions at a time.

The first resignation offer, sent in January, saw 75,000 workers across government agree to quit and keep drawing pay through September, the administration has said. But a second round, rolling out agency by agency through the spring, is seeing a sustained, swelling uptick that will dwarf the first, potentially climbing into the hundreds of thousands, the employees and the records show.

HE WENT THERE: Trump Posts Video Compilation of Mysterious Deaths and ‘Suicides’ LinkedIn to the Clintons

Posted on May 17, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

President Trump went there!

Trump posted a video titled, “The Video Hillary Clinton Does Not Want You to See” that documented just some of the mysterious ‘suicides’ linked to the Clinton Crime family.

The video touched on the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., DNC staffer Seth Rich, Clinton White House Counsel Vince Foster, Clinton White House intern Mary Mahoney, and others connected to the Clintons.

In July 1999, Hillary Clinton’s senate rival and front-runner for NY senate seat John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash.

Mary Mahoney was a Clinton White House intern who could have been a star witness at the Clinton impeachment trials. She was executed at a DC Starbucks in July 1997.

In July 1993, White House Counsel Vince Foster was found dead of an apparent ‘suicide’ in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia.

In 1998, James McDougal, a key witness for White House prosecutors and financial partners with Bill and Hillary Clinton that led to the Whitewater scandal, died of cardiac arrest at the Federal Correctional Facility in Fort Worth, Texas, just before he was supposed to testify.

In 2015, Clinton White House Executive Chef Walter Scheib died of an ‘accidental drowning’ after he went on a hike on a trail in Taos, New Mexico. Scheib’s body was found submerged “in a mountain drainage flowing with surface runoff.”

In July 2016, DNC staffer Seth Rich was shot and killed in DC while he was walking home from a bar. It is believed that Seth Rich was the source of the Hillary Clinton/ DNC leaked emails published by Wikileaks. The Clinton/DNC emails published by Wikileaks greatly damaged Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

In August 2016, Shawn Lucas, a Bernie Sanders supporter who sued the DNC for rigging the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton was found dead in his home.

Christina Laila, Gateway Pundit

What is a Mental Disorder ? May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Posted on May 17, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

Although the term “mental health” is loaded with debatable philosophical suppositions, and though there may be a better term to substitute for this one, I find the term sufficiently suitable for the moment. Moreover, I am a firm believer in the need for attending to one’s psychological needs and desires.

But just because “mental health” is meaningful doesn’t mean, as many apparently think, that the terms “mental illness” and, synonymously, “mental disorder” necessarily are.

Ontology is the philosophy or study of being, of existence: What does it mean to be? To inquire into the ontological status of a thing is to inquire into what it means for it to exist, or how it exists.

The question before us here is, What is the ontological status of a mental disorder?

What kind of a thing is it? Every so many years, the American Psychiatric Association releases another version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). With each new edition, its list of mental disorders grows. Presently, there are around 300 or so such disorders listed.

Now, pathology is the branch of medical science that focuses on the study and diagnosis of disease. This is from the Pathology Department at McGill University:

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Clinical pathology involves the examination of surgically removed organs, tissues (biopsy samples), bodily fluids, and, in some cases, the whole body (autopsy). Aspects of a bodily specimen that may be considered include its gross anatomical make up, appearance of the cells using immunological markers and chemical signatures, as well as genetic studies and gene markers. Pathologists specialize in a wide range of diseases, including cancer, and the vast majority of cancer diagnoses are made by pathologists. The cellular pattern of tissue samples is observed under a microscope to help determine if a sample is cancerous or non-cancerous (benign).

Notice that pathologists practice both anatomical pathology (the examination of the structural alterations in tissues and organs) and clinical pathology (the use of laboratory tests in the identification of disease).

Pathologists determine the presence of diseases in their patients by signs — i.e., objective, demonstrable markers that they can directly observe. A fever, a rash, elevated blood pressure — these are all examples of signs. Signs are not the same thing as symptoms, which are just the subjective experiences that patients report. Fatigue, a headache, a pain in the abdomen — these are examples of symptoms.

As Jeffrey Schaler, who was once a member of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University, reminds us, “it is a fact that there is no literal disease identified by pathologists as mental illness.”

There’s a good reason for this.

Mental illnesses are identified on the basis of symptoms alone. There are no signs — no saliva, urine, or blood tests, no laboratory tests of any sort — by which a mental illness can be diagnosed. And these symptoms are nothing more or less than the reported behaviors of the patient.

What this means, then, is that a mental disorder or illness is a cluster of types of behaviors to which the APA ascribes a label — the label of a “disorder” or “illness.” Furthermore, this determination its leadership makes on the basis of…a vote. The APA decides which behaviors constitute what it will classify as a disorder.

Since, then, a disorder is not a singular thing, but rather a manifold of those behaviors that the APA has chosen to label a disorder, it’s that much clearer why pathologists will not recognize so-called mental disorders: The behaviors that are supposed to constitute mental disorders are descriptive. They are not explanatory.

Pathologists, as we know, search for the underlying causes of disease. Psychiatrists, in glaring contrast, describe behaviors, symptoms, as their patients report them. Thus, for example, an “anxiety disorder” is not the cause of the heart palpitations, dry mouth, queasy stomach, perspiration, tightness of chest, etc. experienced by the person who has been so “diagnosed.” What the APA has decided to call an anxiety disorder is these symptoms. There is no disorder over and above these symptoms that is causing them.

The One and the Many is one of the metaphysical problems first identified at the inception of the Western philosophical tradition in ancient Greece. Characteristic of the Greek mind is the idea that behind “the Many,” the world of many, ever-changing things that we perceive with our senses, is a more ultimate reality, “the One,” a single, eternal, permanent thing upon which the former depends. From its earliest days to the present, philosophers have never stopped arguing with one another over how best to resolve this problem.

To put the ontological status of a mental disorder in the terms of the problem of the One and the Many, the verdict is clear: The Many don’t arise from the One. The Many are the One.

In other words, a person who says she has some or all of the symptoms associated with anxiety disorders but not at any specific time or toward any specific objects may think she is saying something informative when she attributes these symptoms to “Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” But since the latter is not a One — an entity underlying the symptoms and giving rise to them — but rather a short-hand way of referring to those very symptoms, what she is actually saying is only as meaningful as a tautology. Her “diagnosis” amounts to this:

I’m prone, for no particular reason and with respect to no particular object, to have heart palpitations, sweaty palms, and an upset stomach because I’m prone to have heart palpitations, sweaty palms, and an upset stomach for no particular reason and with respect to no particular object.

To be told, then, that a person has a mental disorder is only to be told that the challenging experiences with which one contends are those that a committee of psychiatrists has decided to label a “disorder.” Yet the label is the package of experiences. It adds nothing to one’s awareness other than the illusion of being offered a causal explanation for one’s specific life challenges.

We must conclude that, at best, the ontology of a mental disorder remains…elusive.

Jack Kerwick, American Thinker

JaImage: ElisaRiva via Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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The Supreme Court is Already Packed

Posted on May 17, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that President Trump’s responsibility to American citizens and national security, must be directly frustrated.

Acting under the Alien Enemies Act, President Trump accurately characterized Venezuelan gang members as not only aliens and enemies, but as criminals posing danger to the country. The Court apparently believes otherwise, and a majority ruled to pause deportation subject to a purported right of due process that they invented out of constitutional thin air.

As usual, two justices alone understand the law, and dissented: Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

But what is fascinating is that they appear the only functional legal experts on the nine-person court.

The rest seem to prioritize politics.

Perhaps that is unfair, but if you look at the track record of key legal decisions over fundamental constitutional interpretation, Alito and Thomas stand out as the only reliable, mature thinkers who can reason with the Constitution in front of them.

In the past, other administrations sought to “pack” the court with more appointees who could be counted on to toe the line as a unified bloc for partisan objectives.

It was a way of converting the Supreme Court into an effective legislature, which it never can be, of course, but also as a way to illegally frustrate a functional government by blocking or slowing down actual democratic processes of representation and consent.

But why add more judges to the Court if you can simply “hive off” and count on, a simple majority that consistently acts the way you want?

President Trump is doing his job as president, rightly interpreting the law, and upholding the Constitution.

The Chief Justice, and a cooperating wing, are apparently willing to frustrate executive responsibility, and prioritize illegal alien criminals over U.S. citizens, freely taking numerous “legal shortcuts.”

The Venezuelans and other invaders are not U.S. citizens, they are not “Persons” in the Constitution, and they are not granted any due process, except immediate deportation which is far more generous treatment than they would get in most other countries: in some, which the progressive left admires, their acts could rise to capital punishment.

This brings up a crucial point in comparative constitutional law: the concept of comity.

You don’t hear it discussed much, but it’s central to the underlying nature of the entire illegal immigrant invasion program that clearly involved organized human extraction and the “herding” of millions of unknown parties illegally into our country. The concept of “comity” asks how other countries could allow this to happen: how did potentially dozens of other sovereign countries, each with their own constitutions, happen to treat our Constitution with complete disregard, deliberately undermining it, and international law?

The doctrine of international comity refers to standards of public international law, and reciprocity.

Deporting illegal gang members not only honors that doctrine, but asks their countries of origin to do the same by facilitating their return.

The recent majority Supreme Court decision not only got our own Constitution wrong, but got everyone else’s wrong as well. It doesn’t reflect a full consideration of comparative and international law, which is relevant for the case before them. Given the limited way we train our lawyers and judges, that is not unexpected. But it’s a liability: our courts can work in ways that are against both domestic rules of law, and international order, by destabilizing both, through legal incompetence.

But this is where it gets interesting, because it reinforces the legal authority of President Trump’s position on illegal aliens:

The Comity Clause references Privileges and Immunities in Article Four of the Constitution: “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” Note it says “Citizens.” Article Four also includes the interstate Extradition Clause.

Since illegals have neither U.S. citizenship nor U.S. constitutional personhood, they do not qualify for U.S. interstate rendition or due process. The only relevant legal action is international extradition to the one state that controls for their status: the foreign country of origin from where they are fugitives.

In the alternative, illegals could be jailed, and under the Thirteenth Amendment, thereby converted to slavery status as punishment.

That would be the only path to theoretically invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, for release from obligation. But since illegals do not qualify for U.S. criminal due process, the U.S. Patriot Act provides government authority to detain a non-citizen indefinitely without criminal charge. If the Supreme Court followed the law, it would stand down and recognize that it has no relevant jurisdiction. The Executive Office does.

Illegals have a choice: be subject to our Constitution if they insist, be jailed under expedited special proceeding, and by the Thirteenth Amendment, put in servitude as punishment; or be put under indefinite detention by the Patriot Act under national security; or, be extradited as fugitives from foreign states; or, be graciously deported for illegal entry, under an international comity standard.

In economics, these are called tradeoffs.

In the Constitution, it’s called the law of the land. For judges who can’t follow it, they may face impeachment. As the current “packed wing” of the SCOTUS seems determined to protect and harbor foreign criminals, they could then be subject to the Patriot Act which charges the Justice Department with preventing terror acts, including those potentially facilitating it.

Illegal criminal aliens can be characterized under domestic terror standards, and must be deported. Supreme Court justices that protect them may face impeachment, loose immunity, and risk liability.

Matthew G. Andersson is the author of the upcoming book “Legally Blind” concerning ideology in law. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, and is a graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and the University of Texas at Austin where he worked with economist and White House national security advisor W.W. Rostow.

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