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.
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that Democrats had to “fight like hell” to take the government back from President Donald Trump.
Raskin said, “We got to take the government back from all of the grifters and autocrats and dictators and people who are just trashing the basic values of the country, whether we’re talking about a professional civil service, whether we’re talking about due process, which is what separates the rights and freedoms of the people from arbitrary governmental power and dictatorship, whether we’re talking about free speech or free press. You know, there kicking the Associated Press out of the White House because they dare to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico.”
He added, “I don’t think that we’re going to be able to wave a magic wand and make all of this go away but we are fighting every single day in the House and the Senate and the state legislatures and the councils, the city councils and county councils, and we’re fighting in court and we are winning every day. And people need to understand that we have totally boxed in Donald Trump and all of the lawlessness,. You know, their attempt to dismantle birthright citizenship in America, his attempt to usurp the powers of Congress by just launching a trade war against the whole world, except for Vladimir Putin. All of these tariffs were struck down last week as an absolute abuse of the president’s powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. It doesn’t mention tariffs. Nobody’s ever used it that way. And as the court stated it’s up to Congress to regulate international commerce. It’s always been Congress that has decided on tariffs before.”
Raskin concluded, “So I guess my answer to your question is we’re just going to have to go and fight like hell every single day. And we have to educate people about what the Constitution really stands for, what the rule of law is in America, and how our basic freedoms and rights are under attack by these people.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called on former first lady Jill Biden to “answer for” her role in the massive cover-up of her husband’s declining mental aptitude, accusing her of still “lying to the American people.”
Leavitt unleashed her fiery tirade against the wife of former President Joe Biden while speaking to reporters on Thursday:
“I think, frankly, the former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regards to her husband… Because I think anybody, looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden, with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense, can see that this was a clear cover up,” she said. “And Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that cover up.”
Headlines on Biden’s suspected mental decline have dominated the media since the May 20 release of Original Sin by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, who allege that White House staffers and other Democrat insiders lied to hide the reality of the president’s poor health.
Five former White House employees, including Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, are now in the scope of House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY), who sent them all letters last week demanding interviews for his official probe, the New York Post reported.
In a new hidden-camera video dropped by investigative group Project Veritas, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg accused Jill Biden’s chief of staff, Anthony Bernal, of wielding unchecked power in the White House as the president’s health worsened.
Thompson, a reporter with Axios, also recently told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Biden’s inner circle, including Bernal, was essentially running the country.
“The people in charge were Mike Donilon, Steve Riccheti, Bruce Reed, Anthony Bernal, the first lady’s chief of staff, the first lady, and Annie Tomasini. Those are the people that saw him the most and that had the most control over what he was doing and his day-to-day,” he said.
Leavitt went on to say during her press briefing, “There is documentation, video evidence, of [Jill Biden] clearly shielding her husband away from the cameras. They were just on The View last week, she was saying everything is fine.”
The former first lady attempted to discredit Original Sin and other similar reports during the Bidens’ early May appearance on the daytime talkshow, saying, “The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us. And they didn’t see how hard Joe worked every single day.”
The press secretary added, “She’s still lying to the American people. She still thinks the American public are so stupid that they’re going to believe her lies. And frankly, it’s insulting, and she needs to answer for it.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that billionaire Elon Musk will remain a close adviser, even after the Tesla CEO departs the administration following a chaotic four-month tenure that saw him disrupt dozens of foreign agencies in his effort to slash government spending.
During a joint press conference in the Oval Office, Trump lauded Musk and defended his cost-cutting campaign as the head of the Department of Governmental Efficiency. The group has eliminated thousands of jobs and canceled billions of dollars in spending — including the majority of U.S. foreign aid — but has thus far fallen far short of Musk’s lofty initial promises.
“Elon is really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth,” Trump said from behind the Resolute Desk, as Musk stood to his right, wearing a black DOGE hat and a T-shirt that read “The Dogefather” in the style of the movie “The Godfather.”
The press conference appeared aimed at showing unity after Musk prompted frustration among White House officials this week by criticizing Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill as too expensive. Some senior aides, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, saw Musk’s remarks on the tax bill as an open break from the administration, with Miller particularly irked by the comments, a source familiar with the matter said.
Trump gave Musk a large golden key inside a wooden box bearing his signature, a gift he said he reserved only for “very special people.” Musk, in turn, admired the gold finishings that Trump has installed around the Oval Office.
The White House and senior aides had insisted earlier in Trump’s term that Musk, the world’s richest man, was a key figure who wasn’t going anywhere.
But more recently, they began pointing to the expiration of his 130-day mandate as a special government employee, which was set to end around May 30, as a natural endpoint.
Musk said he intends to devote most of his energy to his business empire, including Tesla and SpaceX, after some investors expressed concern that DOGE was occupying too much of his time.
He has also said he plans to ratchet back his political donations, after he spent nearly $300 million backing Trump’s presidential campaign and those of other Republicans in 2024.
But he told reporters on Friday that he would continue to be part of Trump’s circle of advisers.
Say, weren’t we supposed to fall into the Tariff Apocalypse this month? See runaway inflation? According to the Chicken Littles, the consumers were poised to flee the consumer-driven economy as a trade war ravaged Middle America.
Looks like consumers missed the memo on the Tariff Apocalypse. After a hiccup on Liberation Day, the economic indicators all trend in the right direction this month. For example, the runaway inflation not only failed to show, inflation has actually gone down the last three months, including Liberation Month. Today’s PCE Index report shows the best month for consumers on prices in months. At the same time, personal disposable income soared:
🚨Personal income is UP!
Democrats were screeching about the economy crashing, but it’s IMPROVING for the average American.
Personal income increased $210.1 billion (0.8 percent at a monthly rate) in April, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI)—personal income less personal current taxes—increased $189.4 billion (0.8 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $47.8 billion (0.2 percent).
Personal outlays—the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—increased $48.6 billion in April. Personal saving was $1.12 trillion in April and the personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income—was 4.9 percent.
In case anyone needs a visualization of this data in relation to the past year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis provides this chart:
It’s worth pointing out that consumers may have been a little spooked in April. The PCE increase was minimal relative to the previous six months, although it still outdid January’s small negative dip. That may be why the savings rate accelerated in April to 4.9%, too. Consumption didn’t come to a halt, though, and it’s likely rebounding in May, especially if that represents any pent-up demand.
Another positive indicator needs a little context too. The Census Bureau reported a sharp drop in imports in April, giving us the lowest monthly trade deficit in years:
Goods imports fell by 20% to $276.1 billion, while exports rose 3.4% to $188.5 billion, the Commerce Department said.
It was the biggest one-month drop in goods imports on record.
That yielded a goods trade deficit of $87.6 billion, down from $162.3 billion in March.
Yes, but. The reason imports fell so sharply in April is that importers front-loaded goods in the previous three months. I warned about this a month ago when the Q1 GDP report came back as slightly negative (0.3% annualized). The US experienced an increase of imports more than 40% over the previous quarter, an unheard-of spike that anticipated the coming tariffs that Trump imposed on April 2. It took at least four full points off the final real GDP score (the BEA scored it as closer to five full points, masking a strong result in Q1.
Having moved all that import activity to Q1 means that we will see much lower amounts of that activity for the next few months, perhaps most of the year. That doesn’t mean that we have solved the trade deficit with the tariffs; we just paid for those imports in an earlier reporting period. And even with that in mind plus the application of global tariffs in April, our trade deficit is still pretty large.
However, that’s more of a caution against irrational exuberance than a warning of doom, such as the media has been touting for the last two months. The overall outlook is remarkably sunny, and even consumers who held back in April seem cheered up now, as the consumer confidence report earlier this week suggests:
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index leaped to 98.0, a 12.3-point increase from April and much better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 86.0.
Much of the positive sentiment, according to board officials, came from developments in the U.S.-China trade impasse, most notably President Donald Trump’s halting of the most severe tariffs on May 12.
“The rebound was already visible before the May 12 US-China trade deal but gained momentum afterwards,” said Stephanie Guichard, the Conference Board’s senior economist for global indicators.
May’s rebound followed five straight months of declines. Consumers and investors had grown sour on economic prospects amid the intensifying trade war that Trump has launched against U.S. global trading partners, with China a particular target.
Again, that suggests that we will see PCE activity jump in May and June after a less-dynamic but still positive April. That bodes well for the Q2 GDP report we will see in late July. And it makes clear that we have a very strong economy despite some of the turbulence around “Liberation Day,” and that most Americans realize it despite the steady diet of Chicken Littleism coming from the Protection Racket Media.
In the olden days, the world was run on a feudal system. There were a handful of mostly inter-related nobles who lived in palaces, wore fancy clothes, and ate sumptuous food. They were served by a large class of serfs who did the unpleasant things like digging latrines, plowing fields, slaughtering animals, tanning leather, and all of the other work needed for the nobles to live in luxury. In return, the nobles kept the serfs from starving but generally oppressed them and sometimes did so gratuitously for their own amusement. Serfs had no rights and very little money and were frequently abused, although they were not technically slaves. The world knew only three classes: the undeservedly rich, the undeservedly poor, and a very tiny class of jesters, clowns, actors, and prostitutes who escaped being serfs by selling out to the nobility. The currency of the realm was power.
This lasted until Cosimo de Medici and his heirs, including the aptly named Lorenzo the Magnificent, came up with a better system. Not interested in being serfs, they discovered the dirty little secret behind feudalism — namely, that the inbred, intellectually disabled nobility class was very bad at handling money. The Medicis literally made bank (seriously: They invented double-entry bookkeeping and modern finance), and an emerging merchant class changed history.
The currency of this new realm was actual currency. By strategically lending money to the impoverished fools in their palaces, the Medicis ran the world and created a burgeoning and prosperous middle class. Kings often went, hat in hand, to beg a Medici for money. Nobility didn’t die out, but a creative, innovative, hardworking middle class emerged, and every serf who had the right stuff was able to join in.
The Deep State, or cabal, or whatever you want to call it is a form of neo-feudalism that allows for elites (who are often related to one another) to join shadowy groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg group, the World Economic Forum, and other ones we don’t know the names of in an effort to restore that old-fashioned economy, driven on political power alone. They are trying to promote neo-feudalism by taxing the middle class into oblivion, rewriting financial laws in their own favor, and seizing every lever of power they can. They expanded the jester and fool class to include the press and the universities and obedient political lackeys. They installed the right people, bought the elections, paid off the judges, and tried to seize power again. These neo-feudalist goons play at being modern, but what they really want is the old world order: a handful of elites ruling over a bunch of serfs. Bruce Springsteen, George Clooney, Robert De Niro, and other celebrities can still hang out with the elites as long as they don’t get out of line.
In order to achieve neo-feudalism, these aspiring overlords need to get rid of about 7.5B of the earth’s 8B people. It’s called the depopulation agenda, and it’s much more pervasive than we think (but that’s another story for another day). They also need absolute loyalists to rebuild the nefarious inbred nobility, and everybody else needs to be kept poor and fenced in. They are returning to their roots: It’s all about power.
When these people or their lackeys try to do foreign policy, it’s a foreign policy driven by war, exploitation, corruption, money-laundering, and fear. They rattle sabers and threaten nuclear annihilation. They stage color revolutions and shake down foreign governments. If they don’t like whom a nation elects, they try to destroy that person. And when people oppose them, they, bring Kafkaesque charges, as Joe Biden did against the people and Trump.
Lawfare is a tool of the neo-feudalists. Joe Biden and his minions sent innocent people to prison, let criminals run free, and made malevolent cartels rich beyond belief with an open border. He let over half a million unaccompanied minor children come in over the border and go missing. Three hundred Americans die every day of a drug overdose from an illicit drug. This is all out of the neo-feudalist playbook. First they ruin everything, then they make us frightened, then they impose punitive taxes. They try to kill most of us off, and finally they let a few of us live modest, constrained lives in dedicated service to them, provided we agree to own nothing, eat bugs, and be happy.
Enter Donald Trump. Many people right now are confused with Trump’s politics. He’s running around to strange countries (like Qatar and Syria) and making deals; he is antagonizing presumably friendly countries like Canada. He wants Greenland. He is talking tariffs and trade deficits and peace treaties.
Too much is happening, and to the average person it all seems disconnected, fragmented. How can we play nice with Syria? Why are we trying to stop the war in Ukraine? Don’t we want that war to last forever? And who cares how many people are dying there? What exactly is a tariff? The media are so confused that they’ve fallen back on the only lies they know work well: Trump and Elon are cutting much needed federal programs. (They’re only “much needed” if you’re a grifter committing fraud.)
Trump is ushering in a new sort of politics. It’s not the neo-feudalism of the globalists and their American wing, the Democrat party. Nor is it the robust and sometimes ruthless politics of the Medici middle class. It’s something altogether new. I call it commerce.
Trump has recognized that the common ground we all have is that we do not want to starve or suffer. We want to have happy lives. We want nice things. We want safe streets. We want to enjoy our brief say on this planet. This applies to people in Qatar or Syria or Ukraine or Romania or Taiwan. We all want peace. And, strangely, most of us want work — that is, we all want a chance to be productive, innovative, and successful.
So Trump rolls in and starts making deals. There are business angles to most of this. Countries can see in what Trump is offering. Nobody has ever approached them in this way — that is, as equals and worthy of respect. In listening to Trump, these former enemies and former ignored nations can see that there are ways they can make money by following Trump’s logic. This is prosperity and justice, but for everyone and not just a few overlords. And it’s more than just the cash; it’s about building a good life in a safe place. It’s about having kids enjoy a better life than their parents. It’s about having a world where we can be strong and healthy and safe.
Trump wants to end wars. He wants to build commercial bridges with all different parts of the world. He wants prosperity — not just for himself, but also for others.
No neo-feudalist or Democrat has ever said anything remotely like that and meant it.
Unlike neo-feudalism, in this era of commerce, innovation and hard work will actually pay off. But in order to have a society based on creativity, innovation, business, technology, and advancement, you need peace. That’s how the peace accords factor in. But you also need communities safe from criminals. You need fair courts and just laws. That’s where the fair dealing and the tariffs come in. And you need to stop rattling sabers and shut down the dopey Democrat rhetoric that drives division and hampers creativity and innovation. Identity politics is just hatred and racism in a new package.
(The PRIDE movement is a ridiculous distraction. No matter what you think about PRIDE, it’s a tiny group of people in the world, and we have to stop making it the focal point of all human existence.)
We need to get down to business for real people. Purple-haired nose ring people, your 15 minutes are up.
And unlike the neo-feudalists, Trump is reaching out to people of inconvenient nationalities, ethnicities, and races. Trump sees the potential for mutually beneficial deals, not identity politics. Not that long ago, many American businesses hesitated to allow politics or religion to intrude into the workplace. A restaurant owner or a movie star or a businessman hesitated to talk too much about politics for the simple reason that the discussion might antagonize their customers or drive away an otherwise great potential business partner.
Neo-feudalists want population control, racism, and hatred. It makes us unwashed masses easier to own. The Medici mercantile society broke that, because they knew that you had to get along with people to make money, even if you did not always support their ideology.
Trump takes it a giant step beyond that. He has found common ground. With this new agenda, Trump has taken the currency of the realm from power (neo-feudalists) to money (Medici-style mercantilism) to commerce.
Is there a way for all of us in the world to get along, to thrive, to build, to innovate, to improve? I don’t know, but this sure comes close. The neo-feudalists are finding that ruling with a iron hand doesn’t work. The mercantile middle class found themselves being taxed into poverty and driven into prison or unemployment for resisting the neo-feudalists.
It’s time for a new approach, and we are witnessing something historic.
Trump sees — in ways so few other politicians have seen — that prosperity and freedom and peace all go together. You may or may not like Trump; I’m not here to dissuade you for your opinion. But he’s doing something very new. This is nothing short of a revolution.
The Democrats won’t see it until it’s much too late.
Now more than ever, the ability to speak our minds is crucial to the republic we cherish. If what you see on American Thinker resonates with you, please consider supporting our work with a donation of as much or as little as you can give. Every dollar contributed helps us pay our staff and keep our ideas heard and our voices strong.
Despite all the excuses and finger pointing, liberals/socialists don’t think that they lost the last election — they think that the people just voted wrong. As Lenin said: “People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics.” To influence these people, Lenin said: “We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.” We have seen this tactic repeated in the negative stories about Trump and his supporters over the past decade. This is where totalitarianism starts. It ends with gulags and death.
U.S. socialists have been sowing Lenin’s hate, revulsion, and scorn at even a higher rate since the last election. They have been so successful that a recent poll indicated that 55% of them thought that assassinating President Trump would be justifiable.
To understand the thoughts, methodologies, and goals of modern leftists, you have to go back to the beginning and look at Lenin, the founder of the first socialist state.
The quest for power is what motivates today’s socialists just as it did Lenin. Their agenda today is to attack their capitalist/bourgeois enemies to gain power no matter what the human cost. Some of the Left’s favorite issues were in Lenin’s crosshairs in the 19th century and socialists return to the same Marxist playbook.
Lenin was very clear on what he wanted to do to his political enemies. He called for a “war to the death” with no mercy for the enemies of socialism. He also said that any who opposed his armed uprising were enemies, traitors, and cowards. The Red Terror of the Russian Revolution and civil war cost between 10-12 million lives.
By 2020, things hadn’t changed. Bernie Sanders’ paid staffers wanted to kill the ‘rich’ in an armed rebellion, favored the execution of moderate liberals, gulags for Trump supporters, and violence if Sanders lost the election. The GULAGs, (Glavnoye Upravleniye LAGerey) were started under Lenin and greatly expanded under Stalin.
2025 saw Trump’s victory called an “existential crisis.” And, as with Lenin, Democrats have been told they have to be ready to fight and die for the “cause.” A Democrat congresswoman said that liberals are at “war.” University staffers have said that Musk and DOGE employees are wanted dead or alive.
At the same time, news “fact checkers” have said that the supposed threats made by Democrats, aren’t really threats at all. They even question whether attacks on Teslas, owners, and dealerships are actually terrorism.
Still, Democrats want to be seen as “patriots” by the masses — at least when they’re on camera. However, what did Lenin say about patriotism?
About his own country, Lenin said: “I don’t care what becomes of Russia. To hell with it. All this is only the road to a World Revolution.” Similarly, many ‘modern’ left-wingers see themselves as citizens of the world, not as Americans. Additionally, many students in left-wing schools are being taught by these “world citizens” to hate their own country.
How did it come to this? Why do some Americans love anti-American propaganda? This perception of the U.S. is worldwide, and it is no accident. It is the result of an unrelenting disinformation and reflexive control campaign that was crafted and orchestrated by the best in the USSR (and likely China as well). Many of the propaganda and disinformation themes that are seen in the press today have their roots in Moscow’s massive Cold War propaganda apparatus. In many cases the groups that pushed and funded anti-U.S. themes during the Cold War are the same groups that propagate anti-U.S. messages and themes today.
Listed below are a dozen propaganda themes that are still used today. These representative samples could have been taken out of almost any modern “news” story.
The biggest threat to world peace (civilization and humanity) comes from the U.S. war machine.
U.S. militarist policy means to conduct international affairs from a position of strength.
Washington’s (or the President’s) worldview is simplistic and dangerous.
The U.S. is pursuing a policy of aggression and confrontation.
The U.S. military doctrine is based on the dangerous concept of a pre-emptive strike.
U.S. actions will not enhance U.S. security or make the U.S. stronger.
The U.S. must get the consent of NATO and Western Europe before acting.
If these themes look familiar, they should. They all came out of two Cold War-era Soviet booklets: “Whence the Threat to Peace,” published in 1987 and “Star Wars: Delusions and Dangers,” published in 1985 — and they weren’t new then either. At the that time they were aimed at Ronald Reagan. Now Trump is the target. The problem is that the effect of these themes over the decades has been cumulative.
In his 1899 book, The Psychology of Socialism, Gustave Le Bon said “A man is not a Socialist without hating some person or thing.” Socialism is built on envy, hate, and violence. And gee, do the Liberals love to hate Trump. They will use every old propaganda trick in the book as well as new social media tricks, lies, and violence to influence and intimidate voters
When viewing modern ‘news’ please consider the fact that Soviet-style propaganda operations use consistent messages put out over long periods of time to incrementally change people’s perceptions. The messages emerge from several outlets so they can corroborate each other. Supporting themes are often put out in sequence to lead the audience to the desired conclusions. People believe the lies, thinking that they figured things out themselves using the “evidence” they were given. The engineered “facts” cement the half-truths and falsehoods delivered over months or years and stir up Lenin’s desired hatred and violence.
As an example of Soviet tactics, look at all the recent coast-to-coast anti-Trump demonstrations, protests, riots, prison invasions, and other photo-ops. The ones that are dutifully highlighted by the compliant major media. These seem to be based on the Soviet model called Agitprop (agitation propaganda). Agitprop uses street theater, art, movies, demonstrations, and violence to spread the Left’s political messages, stir up emptions, and create anger at class enemies. These days that seems to be anyone they call a Trumper, or an “oligarch.” Funny how Musk is part of the oligarchy because he’s rich, while $oros is not. Plus, you can see the same terminology and wording across the board in left-leaning news outlets. It’s almost like their messages are being coordinated by a single entity — how Soviet.
Lastly, one might also consider today’s dangerous “lawfare” to really be a dictatorship of the judiciary. It’s liberal power to be used as a socialist last stand for when Americans vote “wrong.”
Now more than ever, the ability to speak our minds is crucial to the republic we cherish. If what you see on American Thinker resonates with you, please consider supporting our work with a donation of as much or as little as you can give. Every dollar contributed helps us pay our staff and keep our ideas heard and our voices strong.
“No one is coming to save you; no one is coming to make life right for you; no one is coming to solve your problems. If you don’t do something, nothing is going to get better. The dream of a rescuer who will deliver us may offer a kind of comfort, but it leaves us passive and powerless. We may feel if only I suffer long enough, if only I yearn desperately enough, somehow a miracle will happen, but this is the kind of self-deception one pays for with one’s life as it drains away into the abyss of unredeemable possibilities and irretrievable days, months, decades.”
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism – by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.
Alex Thompson, co-author of the provocative new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, has ignited a firestorm across Democrat Party circles, asserting that a secretive cadre of aides ran the White House like a shadowy “politburo” to conceal President Joe Biden’s failing mental health.
Thompson told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that he began questioning the White House’s narrative about Biden’s mental fitness in April 2023, after hearing concerns from administration insiders about Biden’s capacity to endure a reelection campaign or another term. Despite repeated denials from the White House, which labeled such claims false, Thompson’s reporting uncovered a different reality, eroding his trust in their statements. He described a tight-knit group of aides – referred to by some within the administration as the “Politburo” – effectively steering the White House. This inner circle, Thompson noted, included longtime Biden aides like Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Bruce Reed, and Ron Klain, alongside key figures close to the Biden family, such as First Lady Jill Biden, Hunter Biden, Jill’s chief of staff Anthony Bernal, and deputy Annie Tomasini, who often serves as Biden’s traveling chief of staff.
The term “politburo” refers to the elite inner circle of a communist regime, wielding unchecked power at the top.
We note that Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are conspicuously absent from this list.
He’d only have to show proof of life every once in a while,” the author said the aide relayed to him. “His aides could pick up the slack.”
“When you’re voting for president, you’re voting for the aides around him,” the aide reportedly said.
Thompson told CNN on Saturday that multiple Biden cabinet members expressed doubts about the president’s ability to handle a critical “2:00 a.m. crisis call.”
“We talked to two cabinet members that believed that he wasn’t up to that. If the 2:00 a.m. crisis phone call, they said like maybe he could have done it, but they did not have confidence that he was at every single day capable of responding to a national security crisis at 2:00 a.m.,” the author told the network. “And just because that 2:00 a.m. crisis did not happen doesn’t mean that it was not irresponsible in the views of these senior members of his own administration.”
“We have Senator Mark Warner in the book Democrat of Virginia saying that he, during a foreign policy national security conversation, they believe that Biden was not really up to snuff on all the issues,” he added. “We also have Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, a Democrat, also probably running for governor, believing that Biden’s age made him unable to handle the immigration portfolio and all the factions of the Democratic Party which led to such incoherence with the border and immigration policies of this country.”
Last week, Biden’s office announced that the former president was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
“On Friday he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” the statement said. “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
He’d only have to show proof of life every once in a while,” the author said the aide relayed to him. “His aides could pick up the slack.”
“When you’re voting for president, you’re voting for the aides around him,” the aide reportedly said.
Thompson told CNN on Saturday that multiple Biden cabinet members expressed doubts about the president’s ability to handle a critical “2:00 a.m. crisis call.”
“We talked to two cabinet members that believed that he wasn’t up to that. If the 2:00 a.m. crisis phone call, they said like maybe he could have done it, but they did not have confidence that he was at every single day capable of responding to a national security crisis at 2:00 a.m.,” the author told the network. “And just because that 2:00 a.m. crisis did not happen doesn’t mean that it was not irresponsible in the views of these senior members of his own administration.”
We note that Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are conspicuously absent from this list.
“We have Senator Mark Warner in the book Democrat of Virginia saying that he, during a foreign policy national security conversation, they believe that Biden was not really up to snuff on all the issues,” he added. “We also have Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, a Democrat, also probably running for governor, believing that Biden’s age made him unable to handle the immigration portfolio and all the factions of the Democratic Party which led to such incoherence with the border and immigration policies of this country.”
Last week, Biden’s office announced that the former president was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
“On Friday he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” the statement said. “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
A warning from the US at the United Nations in New York on Thursday:
‘Deal on offer now is Russia’s best possible outcome’ – US at UN Security Council
Some of the lines from Acting US Alternate Representative to the UN John Kelley:
“If Russia makes the wrong decision to continue this catastrophic war, the United States will have to consider stepping back from our negotiation efforts to end this conflict. To be clear, in doing so, we would not be “abandoning” our principles or our friends. Rather, we would be recognizing Russia’s refusal to work with us toward a desirable outcome.”
“As President Trump has made clear, we want to work with Russia, including on this peace initiative and an economic package. There is no military solution to this conflict. The deal on offer now is Russia’s best possible outcome. President Putin should take the deal.”
He also made clear that more sanctions are on the table as an option. “Additional sanctions on Russia are still on the table. President Trump has emphasized from the beginning that this war was a strategic mistake and should never have happened; time is not on the side of any who would prolong it,” Kelly said.
He also made clear that more sanctions are on the table as an option. “Additional sanctions on Russia are still on the table. President Trump has emphasized from the beginning that this war was a strategic mistake and should never have happened; time is not on the side of any who would prolong it,” Kelly said.
Russia has been precisely ramping up its military response of late: “Russian forces have carried out precision strikes on a facility used by Ukrainian special operations forces, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced Thursday.
‘Command HQs’ are now clearly being targeted in Ukraine, at a moment Germany has said it has lifted all restrictions on long-range weapons for Kiev.
“Of course, it is within the realms of possibility,” the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told TV channel ZDF when asked if Germany would supply long-range weapons for Ukrainian troops. This is after he claimed that leading allies such as the US, UK, German, and France have lifted “absolutely” all restrictions on arms limits – something which Washington has yet to confirm or deny.
Merz hinted that Berlin might transfer its long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine this year, but which would take a many months-long training program for Ukrainian military operators. This is also as he promised new military aid worth €5 billion (£4.2 billion), upon hosting President Zelensky in Germany on Wednesday.
Ukraine will be able to fully defend itself, including against military targets outside its own territory,” said Merz. While leaving the question of Taurus transfer open, the German leader did promise to bankroll Ukrainian domestic development of long-range missile capability.
“We want to talk about production and we will not publicly discuss details,” Merz affirmed. And BBC added in the wake of the Zelensky-Merz meeting:
Germany’s defense ministry said in a statement that Berlin would finance the production of long-range weapons systems in Ukraine and that the “first of these systems could be deployed in the Ukrainian armed forces in just a few weeks”.
As expected the reaction from the Kremlin was immediate, given Merz is certainly testing Moscow’s red lines: “The Russian Federation will respond ‘harshly, asymmetrically, and decisively’ if Germany proceeds with supplying Taurus missiles to the Kiev regime,” a statement from the State Duma Defense Committee said.
Already over the last several days running Russia’s military has struck Kiev, and has long threatened to ramp up attacks on ‘command centers’ – including places where foreign troops and Western advisers might be located.
Russian state media has been more blunt in reaction to Merz’s comments, warning that Moscow could simply directly strike Berlin if German-made missiles begin raining down on Russian cities.
These threats were not made officially, but this is often how the Kremlin indirectly communicates its most dire warnings – either through a mid-level official or something like the outspoken editor-in-chief of RT.
President Trump has said this week that Putin is “playing with fire” with the continual aerial attacks on Kiev and other locations in Ukraine. But Russia has pointed to the literally thousands of drones launched on its territory from Ukraine this month, which have even reached Moscow, disrupting flights at several international airports.
On Wednesday FM Lavrov announced that the next round of peace talks are set for June 2 in Istanbul – but will the warring sides even make it to the negotiating table? The jingoist war of words and threats are ramping up hotter than ever, with the Kremlin warning that further delays (on key conditions like territorial concessions) mean “peace tomorrow will be even more painful”.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 
