Author: Dan Phillips, MD.

Since the election and inauguration of Donald Trump, some mental health professionals have been promiscuously and very publically flouting the ethical guideline commonly known as the Goldwater Rule. The Goldwater Rule, named after former Republican Presidential nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater, prohibits psychiatrists specifically, but other physicians and mental health professionals by implication, from publically speculating about the mental health of public figures unless they have personally evaluated them and have permission to do so. I previously objected to this trend in an article at American Thinker, but since that time the flagrant violation of the Goldwater Rule continues unabated. Here … Continue reading →

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During the campaign, a lot of enthusiastic Donald Trump supporters would claim, when the wisdom of his tactics was questioned, that Trump was playing 3D chess while Hillary Clinton and her sycophants in the mainstream media were playing 2D chess or even checkers. While I never doubted Trump’s powers of persuasion, I generally avoided the 3D chess claim, because I was, quite frankly, torn between whether he was a genius who was several steps ahead of the game or whether he was just the right guy at the right time who was making it up as he went along. I … Continue reading →

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It must have been a slow news weekend for the liberal media, and President Trump didn’t give them enough to get hysterical about, so they decide in mass to feign outrage about how he eats his steaks. Apparently, Trump likes his steaks well-done and eats them with ketchup. Look, I’m not a fan of well-done steaks and the idea of putting ketchup on a fine steak horrifies me. If I had to guess, my hunch is that Trump’s penchant for well-done steaks is likely related to his well-documented fear of germs and his desire to not see any blood, rather … Continue reading →

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Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been much in the news and on the minds of Americans this election and post-election season. During the campaign, Donald Trump’s alleged sympathies for Vladimir Putin played a large role in Hillary Clinton’s apparent campaign strategy to appear as the more conventional and “steady” (read hawkish) candidate on foreign policy. Any mention of embarrassing Wikileaks revelations was answered by “But Russia did it!” If one didn’t know better, he could be forgiven for thinking he had somehow been transported back to the 1980 election during the height of the Cold War, such were … Continue reading →

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The news that the NeverTrump effort, self-identified as the Renegade Party, is considering National Review writer David French as their potential anti-Trump and (allegedly) anti-Hillary independent candidate has mostly been met with a combination of bewilderment and disdain. What little enthusiasm there has been is clearly feigned. French is a man of not unimpressive credentials, but he has virtually no name recognition at the national level. He is not even particularly well known in conservative circles. He is a known quantity primarily to a fairly tight circle of anti-Trump activists who hover around National Review and possibly an equal number … Continue reading →

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Ever since Sen. Ted Cruz suspended his campaign and Donald Trump essentially secured the Republican nomination, certain elements of Conservative Inc. have been flailing about attempting to promote the idea of a third party challenge to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that would more precisely reflect movement conservative pieties. So far, their efforts have not exactly caught fire. There are many reasons for this that I don’t have time to cover in a short essay, but one of them is clearly logistics. It is incredibly difficult and expensive to run nationally as a third party or independent candidate. Some important … Continue reading →

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I’m a big fan of Ron Paul. I supported him in 2008 and 2012. For this reason, I really tried to like Rand Paul, but he makes it hard. I still have some residual sympathy for Rand, so I really want to help him out even though I won’t be voting for him. Once he drops out, I plan to do a post-mortem on his campaign, because I really think Rand and his supporters need to hear some hard truths from someone associated with the “liberty movement” who isn’t one of the “libertarian cool kids” This is not that post-mortem, … Continue reading →

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No one could have predicted the Donald Trump phenomenon that we are currently witnessing, but I believed from the start that Trump might outperform the expectations of the media and the pundit class. I recognized that Trump articulates a very Perot like message of economic nationalism that plays much better with the GOP’s Flyover Country middle class base than it does with the donor class and the three-legs-of-the-stool ideologues. I also recognized that Trump’s campaign, with his message of decline and his call for restoration (“Make America Great Again”), could potentially serve as a somewhat non-ideological vehicle for anger at … Continue reading →

Jesse Ventura has long been discussed as a possible candidate for the Libertarian Party (LP) presidential nomination. Now Ventura is addressing the issue himself. Ventura seems to want to use the Libertarian Party as a vehicle for ballot access without actually joining the party. He plans to run on the claim that if elected he will be the first President since George Washington who is not a member of any party, and joining the LP would obviously invalidate this talking point. Ventura appears to envision an anti-Establishment fusion campaign, because he mentions former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney as a potential running … Continue reading →

The mandatory vs. voluntary vaccination debate is once again occupying a vastly disproportionate share of the media airwaves and social media bandwidth. A noteworthy aspect of this debate is that it cuts across traditional ideological lines and is often quite hostile. The “conservative” opinion on this topic could potentially swing both ways, but on the surface the “libertarian” position seems clear cut. That the government should not force a person to be vaccinated strikes me as the obvious libertarian position, but there is perhaps more to it judging by the level of intra-libertarian debate. Like the abortion debate, there is … Continue reading →

An article recently appeared at PJ Media that boldly declares physical strength should be central to the “new counterculture” identity. By counterculture it is clear from the article that the author, Stephen McDonald, means opposition to political liberalism and resistance to politically correct orthodoxy. I agree, and I hope this article may signal the emergence of a promising trend. So as not to be accused of hypocrisy, I will admit that I could stand to lose some weight and get in better shape myself. I also recognize that there are a lot of counterculture types like me, so there is likely … Continue reading →