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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.

Given the Alternative, What’s So Bad About a “MAGA King”?

“MAGA King” is supposed to be an INSULT?

At least President Donald Trump WANTED to make America great. This sociopath wants America to be destroyed — and 100 percent of his daily efforts are directed toward that effort. Yes, he’s demented. He’s doing the handiwork of the people he works for, in our corporate and medical oligarchy. But he’s still alert part of the time, and that alert part of him knows exactly what he’s doing. And he’s doing it gleefully.

I will take a MAGA King 30 trillion times over a petulant, tyrannical, inept, satanic, demented, puppet-weasel, pitiful despot hellbent on destroying the greatest republic and civilization in all of human history.

But that’s just me.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Empire of Bioweapon Lies

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead, 1922

This glimpse of “fear in a handful of dust” already ranks as one the prime breakthroughs of the young 21st century, presented this week by Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov.

The provisional results of evidence being collected about the work of U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine are simply astonishing. These are the main takeaways.

  1. U.S. bioweapon ideologues comprise the leadership of the Democratic Party. By linking with non-governmental biotechnology organizations, using the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden, they profited from additional campaign financing – all duly concealed. In parallel, they assembled the legislative basis for financing the bioweapons program directly from the federal budget.
  2. COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, as well as Merck and Gilead – of Donald “known unknowns” fame, and affiliated with the Pentagon – were directly involved.
  3. U.S. specialists tested new drugs in the Ukraine biolabs in circumvention of international safety standards. According to Kirillov, acting this way “Western companies seriously reduce the costs of research programs and gain significant competitive advantages.”
  4. According to Kirillov, “along with U.S. pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biotechnology activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.”
  5. The Pentagon, Kirillov pointed out, expanded its research potential not only in terms of producing biological weapons, but also gathering information on antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases among the population in specific regions. The testing ground in Ukraine was practically outside the control of the so-called “international community”.

These findings, amply documented, suggest a vast “legitimized” bioweapon racket reaching the highest levels of the American body politic. There’s no doubt the Russians plan to thoroughly unmask it for the benefit of world public opinion, starting with a War Crimes Tribunal to be set up this summer, most probably in Donetsk.

An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, side by side with preventing an imminent NATO-managed blitzkrieg against Donbass and Kiev’s desire to re-start a nuclear weapons program. These are Top Three red lines for Russia.

The strength of the collected evidence may directly correlate with what was largely interpreted as a carefully measured Victory Day speech by President Putin. The Kremlin does not bluff. It will certainly privilege the meticulous presentation of – bioweapon – facts on the ground over grandstanding rhetoric.

The return of Nord Stream 2

Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyaniskiy announced Russia’s demand for an open meeting of the UN Security Council to present further evidence related to U.S. biolabs in Ukraine. Even if the meeting would be vetoed by the U.S., the evidence will be entered by Russia on the UN records.

These developments provide an extra indication there’s absolutely no space left for diplomacy between Russia and the U.S./collective West, as Polyaniskiy himself suggested when commenting the possible accession of Ukraine to the EU: “The situation has changed after Mr. Borrell’s statement that ‘this war should be won on the battleground’ and after the fact that the European Union is the leader in deliveries of arms [to Ukraine].”

It gets worse. The next chapter is Finland’s drive to join NATO.

The Americans gamble that Finland – and Sweden – joining NATO will totally discredit Putin’s Operation Z as having accomplished next to nothing strategically: after all, in the near future, potential U.S. hypersonic missiles stationed in Finland and Sweden will be very close to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

Meanwhile, Russian unmasking of the bioweapon racket will drive a toxic section of American political elites to turbo-charge their warmongering. It’s all following a carefully calculated script.

First, these bioweapon-supervising “elites” ordered the massive Kiev shelling of Donbas in early February. That forced the Kremlin’s hand, pushing it to launch Operation Z.

We should always remember that the ultimate goal in the U.S. plan of training Ukrainians for war since 2014 was to alienate Germany from Russia – as Germany de facto controls Euroland economically.

Imperial control of the oceans allows the Empire to strangle Germany at will into subservience by cutting them off from Russian energy – as the British did to Germany in WWII when Britannia ruled the waves. The Wehrmacht could not supply their mechanized army with fuel. Now, in theory, Germany and the EU will have to look to the seas – and total U.S. dependency – for their natural resources.

The remote-controlled Kiev regime dominated by SBU fanatics and Azov neo-Nazis is making it even harder – by shutting off all natural gas from Russia through Ukraine into Europe, reducing the flow by more than one third.

That translates as U.S.-enforced blackmail to force the EU to increase the Ukro-weaponizing against Russia. The practical consequences for Germany and the EU will be dire – in terms of shut down industries and cost of home heating and electrical power.

Russia, meanwhile, will rely on a bolstered Pipelineistan maze to China and East Asia as well as high-speed rail to transport all its natural resources.

Blowback against the Americans though is not off limits. Stranger things have happened. If gas transit to Europe via Ukraine is totally cut off, there are no alternatives. And that – assuming there are working IQs in Berlin – would open the way for a renegotiation on the future of Nord Stream 2.

As the head of the Energy Development Center Kirill Melnikov notes, “the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline is practically idle and one of the Nord Stream 2 lines is also ready for operation though the German regulator has not issued permission for its launch yet.”

That prompted Melnikov to a priceless comment: “If purchases remain the same, Germany will probably need to urgently allow the launch of one of the Nord Stream 2 lines in order to replace the Ukrainian transit route.”

No one ever lost money betting on the astonishing stupidity permeating EUrocrat decision levels. Even facing economic suicide, the EU is desperate to “abandon” Russian oil. Yet a full ban is impossible, because of energy-deprived Eastern Europe.

Every impartial energy analyst knows replacing Russian oil is D.O.A., for a number of reasons: the OPEC+ deal; the ghastly divide between Washington and Riyadh; the never-ending JCPOA renegotiation, where the Americans behave like headless chickens; and the crucial fact – beyond the understanding of EUrocrats – that European oil refineries are designed to use oil from the Urals.

So just when we thought we could enjoy the summer by watching Europe commit hara-kiri, it’s time to stock up on those Aperol Spritz. Get ready for a new hit series, season 1: Inside the American bioweapon racket.

Pepe Escobar

The Drums of War Beat Louder

My forebodings/predictions about the Kremlin’s limited go-slow war in Ukraine are proving correct. Putin and Russia are demonized. Unprecedented sanctions amounting to piracy and theft have been imposed on Russia. The US and Europe are joining the war as de facto combatants. More countries are joining NATO with the result being the prospect of more US missile bases on Russia’s borders. The Western media controls the narrative, which is Russia is losing and can be defeated with more many billions of dollars from the US and more weapons that enrich the US military/security complex. Why any Russian government would expose itself to this and so many chances for miscalculation that ends in WW III is a mystery. What did the Kremlin imagine it was achieving by creating a situation that exposed Russia to many months of war propaganda, punishment, and Western preparations for wider war?

What peace needed was a quick decisive Russian victory that demonstrated extraordinary military power that completely stopped any further Western provocations of Russia. But the Kremlin was too liberal-minded to do what was necessary. Consequently the Kremlin made a strategic error, dropped the ball and has failed to protect Russia from provocations that are leading to WW III.

Instead, the Kremlin filled with liberal delusions long discarded in the West decided to show a good side by limiting itself to the rescue of the Donbass Russians. This gave the West adll it needed to present Russia as a military incompetent upstart. Among the Kremlin’s errors, the Kremlin overlooked that Ukraine’s distress from the limited Russian intervention created an opportunity for Poland to claim former Polish territories in western Ukraine where there are no Russian troops engaged. It is possible that the Polish government, disinformed by Western media’s picture of Russian military failure in Ukraine, will occupy western Ukraine as preparation to reclaiming it as Russia did Crimea and now Donbass. As Russia will have eastern and southern Ukraine, the country could simply disappear as Poland resurrects greater Poland. In its history, Ukraine has either been part of Poland’s empire or part of Russia.

If Poland moves into western Ukraine as it is tempted to do, opportunities for Polish-Russian conflict arise. As Poland is a NATO member, Washington has given Poland, as the British government did with World War II’s “Polish Guarantee,” the power to start a world war.

The Polish government has a penchant for emotional decisions, not responsible decisions. Just as the Polish military dictatorship thought the “British Guarantee” protected them, causing them to spurn Hitler’s demand for the return of German territory stripped from Germany in the Versailles Treaty despite President Wilson’s “guarantee” of no territorial losses, the Polish government thinks today that NATO membership protects Poland from Russian retaliation.

The government in Warsaw does not comprehend that the “NATO Guarantee” is worth no more than the British Government’s guarantee that launched WW II.

The governments that comprise the Western World have given Poland, once again, the decision whether there is to be a World War.

This deplorable and unsettling fact stares us in the face, but no Western media, not even online media, acknowledges it.

The situation that exists today is that either Russia and China must accept US hegemony or the neoconservaties will push Russia and China into war with the West. The hegemonic ambition of the neoconservatives is inconsistent with a peaceful world.

Paul Craig Roberts

Finding Truth in a Dying Society

On his show last night, Mark Levin (whom I trust) said that the baby formula shortage is due, in part, to the Biden regime’s FDA shutting down baby formula plants in Texas. They claimed, without evidence, that the plant is unsafe; and now they refuse to say anything at all. It seems more like a political move to punish Texans for their defiance against the regime in D.C. on immigration, abortion and other matters. Levin also reported that a congresswoman in Florida has seen evidence of pallets of baby formula being sent to illegals waiting to come into America. Surprise, surprise.

If any of this is true, do you fathom what we’re up against? The totalitarians in Washington would literally rather starve babies–in AMERICA–than face even tepid opposition to their unlimited thirst for power. Do you seriously still doubt that Americans are now living in an occupied country? No different than if the Nazis, Soviets or today’s CCP had invaded and taken over our government?

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We are now living in a country our founders fought to escape.

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“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

— George Washington

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“Reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”

— Terence McKenna

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“If one rejects laissez faire [economics] on account of man’s fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government intervention.”

— Ludwig von Mises, economist

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A meme on social media states:

I see some Americans saying “I Stand With Ukraine.” Doubtful … You can’t even stand for your own Country or Flag. I stand with American people. I don’t give shxt about Ukraine or Russia.

I stand with GOOD Americans. Not the toxic, woke snowflakes who still support Biden and his ilk. They can go to the hell they are creating for us all.

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Healing also means taking responsibility for the role you play in your own suffering. (Unknown)

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No matter how long you have traveled in the wrong direction, you can always turn around. (Unknown)

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“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

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You get what you focus on , so focus on what you want. (Unknown)

Daily Dose of Reason

Inflation Malarkey

Faced with public outrage over the soaring prices of gasoline, food, and other items, President Biden has announced his intention to combat inflation. At the same time, monetary experts in the mainstream press are weighing in with their recommendations on how to fight inflation.

It’s all malarky. No doubt the next thing they are going to do is come up with buttons that say “Whip Inflation Now!” just as Republican President Ford did. 

There is one — and only one — cause of inflation: the Federal Reserve System. The Fed is America’s central bank. It is in charge of the money supply. When it expands the money supply, it is inflating the money supply. 

That’s what the Fed has been doing for years and decades. It’s been inflating the money supply. Once the pandemic hit, it hit the inflate button even more times, expanding the amount of money in circulation exponentially.

That’s how we also get those economic booms and busts. Each time they inflate the balloon, it bursts with a bigger pop. The next time it bursts, the pop will be even bigger than the last time. 

There is nothing new in all this. Governments have been inflating the money supply throughout history. Inflation of the money supply has always been an easy way for governments to spend money. Ordinarily, to spend money they have to tax people. But people don’t like taxes. So governments instead just print money and spend it, in the process inflating or expanding the overall supply of money. 

What happens when the Fed inflates or expands the money supply? It cheapens the value of everyone’s money. If there is $1 trillion in circulation and the Fed expands or inflates the money supply to $2 trillion, obviously that means that everyone’s dollars are going to buy less than before. 

How is that monetary debauchery reflected? Through the prices of things that money buys. Like gasoline or food. Prices across the board start increasing, which is natural. There is no other way to reflect the reduced value of everyone’s money. 

President Biden and many other politicians clearly do not get this. Neither do many commentators in the mainstream press. They have absolutely no idea that the Federal Reserve’s expansion of the money supply is reflected in rising prices of things that people buy. They think that the rising prices are because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or supply-chain issues. They think that the Federal Reserve has nothing to do with the monetary debauchery.

But the Federal Reserve has everything to do with inflation and monetary debauchery. That’s why prices are rising across the board.

The reverse side of a Washington Quarter Dollar, which was 90 percent silver. Licensed under Creative Commons.

In fact, that’s why year after year, decade after decade, the value of the U.S. dollar has diminished. That’s why you use cheap-alloyed coins to buy soft drinks from a machine rather than real silver quarters. At one time people used silver quarters to buy their soft drinks. But as the value of the government’s money cheapened due to Federal Reserve expansion or inflation, it was no longer smart to use silver coins to buy soft drinks.

It all had to do with the massive, ever-growing expenditures of the federal government, specifically with respect to its welfare-state programs, its regulatory programs, and especially its warfare-state programs. Does everyone remember those “free” stimulus checks? As we here at FFF pointed out at the time, they weren’t really going to be free, as people are now finding out when they fill their cars with gas.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone why there has always been so much chaos in the monetary sphere. The Federal Reserve is based on monetary central planning, which is a variation of the socialist paradigm. Socialism always produces crises and chaos. 

There is only one solution to this monetary debauchery. That solution does not lie in reforming the Federal Reserve. It lies in terminating, abolishing, dismantling, and ending the Federal Reserve and establishing in its stead a free-market monetary system. Or as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek put it, the solution lies in “denationalizing money.” The free market produce the best of everything. It would produce the best monetary system in history and help place our nation back on the road to liberty and prosperity.

Jacob Hornberger, Future of Freedom Foundation

One Rule for Us, Another for Them

Politico recently reported that the Supreme Court will probably overturn Roe v. Wade. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted that the leak was a “call to arms,” and for progressives, it meant protests, threats, and property destruction.

White advocates are divided on abortion. There are pro-lifers who may oppose it because some people think it is eugenic. A white advocate might defend abortion for the same reason. However, that doesn’t mean extreme leftists would think he was an ally. There will be no separate peace.

Antifa activists are not divided. “We support abortion rights and reproductive freedom,” reads one of the “Points of Unity” for the antifa “Torch Network.” A masked and menacing antifa “black bloc” joined a pro-choice rally in Seattle.

In Wisconsin, someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of a pro-life group, Wisconsin Family Action. An activist also spray-painted the antifa slogan “All Cops Are Bastards” and “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.” A group called “Jane’s Revenge,” named for the pre-Roe group of abortionists called “Jane’s Collective,” claimed responsibility via a said the attack was a “warning” that there could be more extreme methods, and that “anti-choice establishments, fake clinics [meaning crisis pregnancy centers], and violent anti-choice groups” must be dismantled within 30 days. It says it is “not a declaration of war” because “war has been upon us for decades.”

Mr. Evans says he would be “very surprised if this was not a legitimate attack.” Police are still investigating. The group sounds so extreme it may be a hoax, but at least one verified Twitter user praised the attack before losing or deleting her account. Her publication’s Samuel Alito (the author of the Court’s draft opinion), Amy Coney BarrettBrett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts. Television host Joy Behrar said the protests would teach Justice Samuel Alito about “freedom of choice.” Mother Jones dismissed the “tone police” who suggest such tactics are immoral or ineffective. Many verified Twitter users promoted or defended protests, even though demonstrations at the homes of Supreme Court justices is a federal crime.

Gregory Hood

Liars

We don’t call someone a liar only if they lie 100 percent of the time. We call someone a liar because he or she does not care about the TRUTH.

A liar is at war with reality. Facts are uttered when it’s convenient. Falsehoods are uttered when it’s convenient. Crucial facts are left out when it’s convenient. For whose convenience? The liar’s.

Anyone who has been close to an addict, a narcissit or a sociopath understands. You cannot EVER believe what a liar says. Even if the liar happens to be accurate 80 or 90 percent of the time. Why? Because you cannot TRUST someone who does not care about objective truth.

That’s what we’re all facing with today’s media and government. It’s not that they’re always lying. It’s that they do not care about truth. They will say whatever needs to be said — truthful, or not — in order to maintain and expand their power over people.

We saw this with the deception over COVID that goes on to this day. We saw this with the deliberate refusal to mention the violence of the Black Lives Matter rioters and looters. We saw this with the refusal to even report on evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, and overt punishment or censorship when discussion was even contemplated.

The media and our government are liars. It’s not really a partisan issue. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are no better than Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden. The longer anyone has been in government, the less you can trust them. The media is so dishonest that they’re even worse than the media under a dictatorship. Under a dictatorship, you can at least excuse the fear. Our media does not yet have to lie (and a small number of them don’t); but they lie anyway, in order to advance the sociopathic, narcissistic and financial interests of those in power.

It’s sick to the point of evil. But it’s where we are. So just as you should arm yourself literally, you also must arm yourself intellectually and psychologically — with an understanding that the people you have been trained to trust on NBC, CNN, CBS and at the White House do not value the truth, or tell the truth.

Somehow, we will have to figure out the truth for ourselves. We have the brains to do so; if only more of us would use those brains.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason