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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.

For God ‘s Sake, IT’S THE FLU

For God’s sake, IT’S THE FLU. The flu is serious business for the elderly and others with medical problems. I will not minimize the pain and heartbreak of loss. But we have never shut down civilization because of a virus with a 99.99 percent survival rate, and we should not have done so now. What we’re witnessing is an act of collective suicide, aided and abetted by a mindless, compliant media and a willfully brain-dead corporate, politicized establishment. Please, I implore all of you regular people out there: take some deep breaths and grow the hell up. Your fellow citizens need you. Think of the strong generations who went before you, the people who endured war and depression and REAL pandemics. Be inspired by them and find a shred of strength. PLEASE.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Democrats are Finding out that Demographics aren’t Necessarily Destiny

November of last year I wrote about the phenomenon Democrats have been pushing for decades – that the “less white” this country becomes, the better it is for them; that at a certain point, and soon, the Republican Party would be relegated to the fringe of society. “Demographics are destiny,” they insist. It’s a nice, neat theory that just so happens to dovetail perfectly with the racial politics the left have been playing the whole time. But a funny thing happened on the way to permanent power…

For Democrats, this argument, and the hope that it was true, hinged on one thing: the Hispanic vote. For half a century, Democrat have gotten almost 90 percent of the black vote. It’s become a joke in political circles, that Republicans don’t even bother to try and neither do Democrats. And by that I mean Republicans don’t try to make a dent in the black vote while Democrats don’t bother to try to fulfill any of the promises they’ve made to black voters because where are they going to go?

Democrats own the black vote, and everyone knows it. No matter how horrible Democrat leadership in majority black cities across the country, there is zero concern from those failed elected officials that their indifference or neglect will lead to an electoral loss. Hell, crack smokers and people overseeing a killing field get reelected if they’re Democrats, why would anything short of those be of a concern? They aren’t.

The model was what Democrats planned for the Hispanic vote – convince Hispanics the alternative is somehow worse, sit back and roll to victory. So how did Joe Biden end up being less popular than a painful inner ear infection with Hispanic voters? The answer is pretty easy, but I’m going to make you wait a little bit for it.

First, where did I come up with the idea that Democrats are in trouble with the Hispanic vote?

The latest NPR/PBS, Marist poll, not exactly a bastion of centrism, let alone conservatism, contains numbers that are scaring the delusions of Hispanic vote dominance out of even the most overpaid progressive consultant.

In addition to showing Biden having an embarrassing 41 percent approval rating, with Hispanic voters that number is significantly lower.

Only 33 percent of Hispanics view Joe Biden’s performance as President favorably, while fully 65 percent actively disapprove (2 percent were off having a sandwich somewhere). That is embarrassing.

The poll already had bad news for Democrats, with independent voters disapproving of Biden by a gigantic margin: 29 – 66 percent. But the Hispanic numbers are what Democrats are really worried about.

Independent voters are much easier to sway than locked in ethnic voting blocs. Independents don’t really believe in much, at least not enough to solidify their vote for any length of time. Ethnic voters generally have been cultivated by the left to identify with people who look like them moreso than anything else. So why does it not seem to be working for Democrats with Hispanic voters?

Have you noticed the flood of illegal aliens across the southern border? I know you have, everyone has. So have Hispanic Americans, decedents of people who’ve made that journey long ago. Whether they have just arrived or are first or second-generation Americans, they all know what the people flooding the border are fleeing.

There is no one who’d make the 3,000 mile walk from Venezuela to the United States, for example, who comes in singing the praises of socialism or would support anyone advocating a political philosophy that destroyed their ancestral homeland. The same can be said for pretty much all countries south of the Rio Grande, to one degree or another. Why would anyone coming from there, or who heard the stories of their parents or grandparents who came here, ever support what their families fled? The truth is they wouldn’t. Those numbers in that Marist poll show as much.

Hispanics know the horrors of socialism, likely know someone who’d suffered under it. No matter how you package, what face you put out front and how you dress it up, what Democrats are pushing is still socialism. That might fly with wealthy white suburbanite women with too much time on their hands, academics, and the activist class – in other words, people whose lives wouldn’t be disrupted by the change – but the people who’d see their futures severely limited by destructive liberal policies are not interested in them.

Demographics are not destiny, and that’s really all Democrats have right now. That bodes well for Republicans next year, unless they completely screw up the campaign which, given we’re dealing with Republicans, is entirely possible.

First, where did I come up with the idea that Democrats are in trouble with the Hispanic vote?

The latest NPR/PBS, Marist poll, not exactly a bastion of centrism, let alone conservatism, contains numbers that are scaring the delusions of Hispanic vote dominance out of even the most overpaid progressive consultant.

In addition to showing Biden having an embarrassing 41 percent approval rating, with Hispanic voters that number is significantly lower.

Only 33 percent of Hispanics view Joe Biden’s performance as President favorably, while fully 65 percent actively disapprove (2 percent were off having a sandwich somewhere). That is embarrassing.

The poll already had bad news for Democrats, with independent voters disapproving of Biden by a gigantic margin: 29 – 66 percent. But the Hispanic numbers are what Democrats are really worried about.

Independent voters are much easier to sway than locked in ethnic voting blocs. Independents don’t really believe in much, at least not enough to solidify their vote for any length of time. Ethnic voters generally have been cultivated by the left to identify with people who look like them moreso than anything else. So why does it not seem to be working for Democrats with Hispanic voters?

Have you noticed the flood of illegal aliens across the southern border? I know you have, everyone has. So have Hispanic Americans, decedents of people who’ve made that journey long ago. Whether they have just arrived or are first or second-generation Americans, they all know what the people flooding the border are fleeing.

There is no one who’d make the 3,000 mile walk from Venezuela to the United States, for example, who comes in singing the praises of socialism or would support anyone advocating a political philosophy that destroyed their ancestral homeland. The same can be said for pretty much all countries south of the Rio Grande, to one degree or another. Why would anyone coming from there, or who heard the stories of their parents or grandparents who came here, ever support what their families fled? The truth is they wouldn’t. Those numbers in that Marist poll show as much.

Hispanics know the horrors of socialism, likely know someone who’d suffered under it. No matter how you package, what face you put out front and how you dress it up, what Democrats are pushing is still socialism. That might fly with wealthy white suburbanite women with too much time on their hands, academics, and the activist class – in other words, people whose lives wouldn’t be disrupted by the change – but the people who’d see their futures severely limited by destructive liberal policies are not interested in them.

Demographics are not destiny, and that’s really all Democrats have right now. That bodes well for Republicans next year, unless they completely screw up the campaign which, given we’re dealing with Republicans, is entirely possible.

First, where did I come up with the idea that Democrats are in trouble with the Hispanic vote?

The latest NPR/PBS, Marist poll, not exactly a bastion of centrism, let alone conservatism, contains numbers that are scaring the delusions of Hispanic vote dominance out of even the most overpaid progressive consultant.

In addition to showing Biden having an embarrassing 41 percent approval rating, with Hispanic voters that number is significantly lower.

Only 33 percent of Hispanics view Joe Biden’s performance as President favorably, while fully 65 percent actively disapprove (2 percent were off having a sandwich somewhere). That is embarrassing.

The poll already had bad news for Democrats, with independent voters disapproving of Biden by a gigantic margin: 29 – 66 percent. But the Hispanic numbers are what Democrats are really worried about.

Independent voters are much easier to sway than locked in ethnic voting blocs. Independents don’t really believe in much, at least not enough to solidify their vote for any length of time. Ethnic voters generally have been cultivated by the left to identify with people who look like them moreso than anything else. So why does it not seem to be working for Democrats with Hispanic voters?

Have you noticed the flood of illegal aliens across the southern border? I know you have, everyone has. So have Hispanic Americans, decedents of people who’ve made that journey long ago. Whether they have just arrived or are first or second-generation Americans, they all know what the people flooding the border are fleeing.

There is no one who’d make the 3,000 mile walk from Venezuela to the United States, for example, who comes in singing the praises of socialism or would support anyone advocating a political philosophy that destroyed their ancestral homeland. The same can be said for pretty much all countries south of the Rio Grande, to one degree or another. Why would anyone coming from there, or who heard the stories of their parents or grandparents who came here, ever support what their families fled? The truth is they wouldn’t. Those numbers in that Marist poll show as much.

Hispanics know the horrors of socialism, likely know someone who’d suffered under it. No matter how you package, what face you put out front and how you dress it up, what Democrats are pushing is still socialism. That might fly with wealthy white suburbanite women with too much time on their hands, academics, and the activist class – in other words, people whose lives wouldn’t be disrupted by the change – but the people who’d see their futures severely limited by destructive liberal policies are not interested in them.

Demographics are not destiny, and that’s really all Democrats have right now. That bodes well for Republicans next year, unless they completely screw up the campaign which, given we’re dealing with Republicans, is entirely possible.

Derek Hunter

The most detailed evidence yet of the devastating damage Covid vaccines can do

INJECTING millions of people with countless copies of a gene that instructs the body to produce a toxic protein might not seem very sensible. But it was hoped that this approach, the basis of the Covid vaccine, would help minimise damage caused by the protein – the ‘spike’ that the genetically engineered SARS-CoV-2 uses to invade our body cells – when we meet the actual virus.

Last month we reported an American heart specialist’s finding that most of his patients showed biochemical changes signalling increased cardiovascular risk in the weeks following their Covid mRNA jab. Markers for inflammation, cell death and an immune response to coronary artery injury all increased compared with results from a few months previously. The overall results indicated a ‘dramatic’ rise, from 11 per cent to 25 per cent, in the likelihood of a heart attack or similar event occurring some time over the next five years should those changes persist. 

The report was presented as an abstract to a meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA), and subsequently published in Circulation, the AHA’s journal. After being made public, an ‘expression of concern’ was added to the abstract, saying there are ‘potential errors’ and it may not be reliable. 

There is however every reason to take it seriously – apart from UK researchers reportedly having found similar results, which they are not prepared to publish for fear of losing research money.

Last Friday the most detailed evidence yet of the damage the vaccine can do was presented at an online symposium on Covid science organised by Doctors for Covid Ethics. This is an international group that has long opposed the mass rollout of the Covid jab, arguing in particular that the immune system may attack our own tissues when it detects the presence of the spike protein. 

Thousands of deaths have been reported in the wake of the jab, but regulators claim most of these are coincidental, and have neglected detailed investigation of whether or not the vaccine was responsible.

Exactly that kind of investigation was carried out by German pathologist Professor Dr Arne Burkhardt, who has 40 years of experience in the field. He examined the tissues and organs of 15 patients where a post-mortem had been performed, an exceptional opportunity that came about because the bodies were in institutes of legal medicine and institutes of pathology.  

There were seven men and eight women aged between 28 and 95.  They died between seven days and six months post-injection.

In essence, Burkhardt found internal damage in most of the deceased, caused by a self-destruct process in which immune cells – lymphocytes – had invaded different parts of the body. 

In five of the 15 cases, it was concluded that the correlation with the vaccination was very probable; in seven, it was probable; and in two cases it was not clear, but possible. ‘In one case we did not find any of these changes of any significance,’ Burkhardt said.

He presented slides showing how the lymphocytes infiltrated heart muscle in particular, causing inflammation. Resulting lesions were small and easily overlooked, ‘but the destruction of just a few muscle cells may have a devastating effect’, he said. ‘If the inflammatory infiltration is found where the impulse for the contraction of the heart is given, this may lead to heart failure.’

Another finding, also easily missed, was lung damage caused by the lymphocyte invasion, seen in nearly half the cases. Liver, kidney, uterus, brain, thyroid and skin also showed signs of autoimmune damage. 

Summarising Burkhardt’s presentation, Canadian microbiologist Professor Dr Michael Palmer said: ‘Anybody with a medical training will see just how devastating the effect of these vaccines can be, at least in those who die after the vaccination . . . we also now know why the authorities were very hesitant to have autopsies performed on such victims.’ 

Elsewhere, Palmer has argued that even though deaths after vaccination are few compared with the numbers who have received the jab, ‘the total lifetime dose of these messenger RNA vaccines that you can tolerate before you die is limited. We don’t know the exact amount because there is simply not enough experimental data.  That’s one of the great scandals of these vaccines, that no proper toxicity studies have been carried out.’  

Animal studies have shown clearly that the jab does not just stay at the site of the injection. It circulates widely, such that the spike protein can combine with receptors in many parts of the body, and especially cells that line our blood vessels, causing both clotting and excessive bleeding. Many sudden clusters of deaths (see here and here) have been reported in the immediate wake of the vaccine drives, also observed in athletes

Burkhardt’s findings, highlighting immune cell infiltration of tissues where the vaccine-induced spike protein has manifested, come in the wake of many warnings of such a mechanism and are supported by various studies suggesting long-term risks. These include:

·       US physician Dr Patrick Whelan warned the US Food and Drug Administration a year ago, before the vaccine rollouts, that jabs based on the spike protein may themselves trigger symptoms of severe Covid, including blood clots, brain inflammation and damage to the heart, liver and kidneys. Whelan, a paediatric specialist caring for children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome, urged particular caution over giving the vaccine to children and young adults, as they normally fight off the infection in its early stages.  Before any of the vaccines were approved for widespread use in humans, he said, there should be an assessment of the effects on the heart.  

       The vaccine includes a modification in the RNA code aimed at synthesising abundant copies of the spike protein – running into trillions of molecules, according to this visual display produced by Dr Charles Hoffe, a Canadian doctor. He says the majority of people who receive the Covid shot ‘are getting blood clots that they have no idea they’re even having.’ The modification, along with a device that protects the RNA mechanism against immediate destruction by the body, may enable the jabs to present a bigger risk in some recipients than natural infection, since this is usually dealt with successfully by a healthy immune system. No one knows exactly how much of the protein is produced by the jab, nor how long it lasts in the body.

Dr Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA technology, says ‘multiple peer-reviewed references’ demonstrate that the virus’s spike protein poisons body cells (see for example here), but the vaccine developers have not demonstrated the safety of their version of the protein.  Proper evaluation of the risks is still not being carried out, he says

·       Another German pathologist found from autopsies conducted on 40 people who died in the wake of the jab that 30-40 per cent were vaccine-related. Professor Peter Schirmacher believes many such deaths are missed, with doctors attributing them to natural causes.

·       American cardiologist and journal editor Dr Peter McCullough has warned that the vaccine can damage heart tissue in ways that go unnoticed at first, but which create scar tissue liable to cause permanent cardiac dysfunction later in life. ‘This will go down as the most dangerous biological medicinal product rollout in human history,’ he says. McCullough has also highlighted an increase in deaths among children in the UK since the NHS began vaccinating teenagers aged 12 and over against Covid.  

·       An analysis of UK ‘Yellow Card’ adverse reaction data by Dr Tess Lawrie’s Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy found thousands of reports of blood clotting after the Covid jabs. Almost every vein and artery was affected, and every organ including parts of the brain, lungs, heart, spleen, kidneys, ovaries and liver, ‘with life-threatening and life-changing consequences’. Lawrie urged the UK regulators as long ago as last June to declare the vaccine unsafe for use in humans because of the deaths and adverse reactions being reported.

·       A ‘chilling’ acknowledgement of the specific risks of mycocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (swelling in tissue surrounding the heart) following Covid vaccination was issued this month by the UK Health Security Agency. The agency still insists such cases are rare and that most patients recover fully, but evidence such as Burkhardt’s suggests many deaths may go unrecognised as vaccine-related.  

It’s a terrible mess, and there is a desperate need for a review of the entire Covid vaccine strategy. UK pathologists, please come to the rescue! 

Neville Hodgkinson

Vaccination Mythology Tied Up in Knots

Let me get this straight. We’re told that if you’re not vaccinated, you’re going to die. And that if you are vaccinated, you’re going to live. Yet the flu has a 99.99 percent survival rate. And vaccinated people are continuing to get the flu, just as unvaccinated people are continuing to get the flu. So how is it true that ALL of the unvaccinated are going to die, while ALL of the vaccinated are going to live?

I realize that Biden and Fauci are never wrong, and would never lie. So I must be missing something. Can someone please explain it to me?

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Destroying Democrat Delusions

Sen. Joe Manchin’s announcement that he will not support the Democrats’ giant spending bill should not have been a surprise to anyone who has been watching Manchin for the last few months. Yet many Democrats, especially in the White House and in the progressive wing of the House of Representatives, appeared shocked when Manchin told Fox News’ Bret Baier, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t.”

They apparently believed Manchin would ultimately come around, and do so before Christmas. When he did not, they were stunned.

Their reaction is the latest manifestation of a mass delusion affecting Democrats in Washington. For nearly a year, since Jan. 20, 2021, they have believed they could enact a nation-changing agenda — shades of FDR and LBJ! — without having won a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate. Somehow, all on their own and without any Republican support, they could bring landmark legislation to a 50-50 tie vote in the Senate, and then have Vice President Kamala Harris break the tie in the Democrat’s favor. They seemed to forget that Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson had huge majorities in both House and Senate when they enacted sprawling New Deal and Great Society legislation, respectively.

Even the structure of their massive spending bill, which they called Build Back Better, was shaped by their lack of a Senate majority. Democratic leaders knew how hard it would be to get anything through the Senate — to keep all 50 of their own senators together — so they packed nearly the entire Biden agenda of social spending and climate projects into a one big bill. Then everyone on their side would have to vote for it, wouldn’t they?

No, they wouldn’t. Manchin, a Democrat from a state Donald Trump carried by 40 points last year, voted for earlier massive spending measures but drew the line at Build Back Better. He gave lots of reasons. He’s worried about inflation. He’s worried about the accounting gimmicks. He’s worried that the bill distracts resources from the fight against COVID. But the bottom line was: No.

Perhaps the real news was that Democrats were shocked. And angry. The White House quickly released a long statement, approved by President Biden himself, accusing Manchin of lying during negotiations over the bill. Manchin’s announcement on Fox News, the statement said, represented “a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the president and the senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.”

Others were more … direct. “Let’s be clear: Manchin’s excuse is bulls—,” tweeted Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Still others used Manchin’s position to advocate blowing up the entire structure of the Senate. “What kind of healthy democracy is structured in a way that can allow one man elected by 290,000 voters in one of the least populous states to thwart the agenda of his party and the president who was elected with 81 million votes[?]” tweeted Sherrilyn Ifill, head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “We need structural change.” (Ifill neglected to note that Manchin had no special power by himself; he joined the 50 Republican senators who do not support the bill to create a 51-vote majority against the legislation.)

Obviously, Democrats were disappointed. That’s understandable. But what lay behind the intensity of their reaction? The American Enterprise Institute’s James Pethokoukis had a good point when he suggested the answer lay in the realm of psychology, not politics. “This whole fight over the Biden agenda seems like a behavioral psychology case study,” Pethokoukis tweeted. “Progressive Dems anchored their expectations when they thought the 2020 elections were going to be a big win — and when they weren’t, struggled to alter expectations.”

So the answer to the question — Why do Democrats believe they can pass controversial, far-reaching, consequential legislation without holding a majority of seats in the Senate? — might be that Democrats have not accepted the fact that they do not hold a majority of seats in the Senate. They have never adjusted their agenda to fit their actual situation. But now reality is doing it for them.

Byron York, Townhall.com


With Tyrants, You Have to go on OFFENSE

Fighting tyranny by complaining is not enough. You have to go on the offensive. DeSantis has the right idea. Don’t just block or repeal totalitarian measures. Criminalize the imposition of them. The governors, mayors, members of Congress and Presidents have no moral or legal right to do anything they’re doing. They are at war with the people. At some point, the goal will have to be: stop them by arresting, prosecuting and convicting them. If you conclude it’s not worth it, then you’re surrendering to a life under permanent, always expanding tyranny.

In American history, we ended British rule, abolished slavery and stopped the encroachment of Nazis, imperial Japanese and Soviet Communists. Today’s real and present danger? Totalitarian “Democrats.” They are NOT letting up. They will never accept any kind of defeat. At some point, lovers of liberty must go on the offensive and be the same way. Freedom is slipping away before our eyes.

Michael J Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason