Foreign policy is not something that Bernie Sanders speaks of often. His focus has been primarily on domestic policy. But it is inevitable that if he wins the White House, foreign policy will come front and center. And he will have to make one of two choices: an easy one, and a hard one. The easy choice will be to allow the bombs to drop, to expand the bombing. The hard choice will be to refuse. I have a feeling that he will give in. I’d bet the farm on it, in fact. He will sign off on the bombs just like every other President has thus far. He’ll grovel before Saudi Arabia and Israel, he’ll threaten Iran, he’ll make an attempt to implement his domestic policies, most of which will have a fate similar to that of Trump’s Wall. The question is, how will his supporters react once he bloodies his hands as commander in chief of a vast and violent empire? How will they react to the varied rationales for war that he will give Congress and the country?

Sanders appears to have no solid principle regarding foreign policy. Which means that he will fold up like a wet noodle to the incessant pressure of the foreign policy Establishment that has crafted into high art the bullying of elected leaders into acquiescing to their policy demands. Unlike Tulsi Gabbard, who is immovable as a sequoia in matters of foreign policy, Sanders will compromise. In fact, “compromise” remains the only principle left among our elected officials. Compromise being the default position of those without anything unyielding within them, and it shows in their mannerisms, the sound of their voice, and their actions. It is an ugly thing to behold, but so common now that its expected. Sanders will compromise on foreign policy to get what he wants on domestic policy. He’ll sign off on the massive military budgets, sign off on the next war, sign off on surveillance, in order to have a shot at “Medicare for all”.  It won’t happen, but the military-industrial-tech complex will most certainly get their check. Sad, but true.

Once it happens, once President Bernie begins giving his seal of approval to wave upon wave of bombings, what will his supporters say? They say and do the same thing that the supporters of President Trump have done: absolutely nothing. But they will vote for him again.

Very interesting and concerning article up at Dogs Naturally, discussing the unintended, never-discussed consequences for dogs of getting their shots:

“The vaccinated, but not the non-vaccinated, dogs in the Purdue studies developed autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, DNA, albumin, cytochrome C, cardiolipin and collagen.

This means that the vaccinated dogs — “but not the non-vaccinated dogs”– were attacking their own fibronectin, which is involved in tissue repair, cell multiplication and growth, and differentiation between tissues and organs in a living organism.”

The concern that vaccines are confusing the immune system, causing it to begin attacking the body itself, has been a primary concern for all those people that have been marginalized and dismissed as crazy “anti-vaxxers”. Why the disconnect? Why is it so hard for so many people to discuss the dangers of vaccination?

H/t Facebook group, “Your Baby, Your Way”

Again from Annie Dillard’s brilliant book, The Writing Life:

 “One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

Two teacher’s unions are calling for an end to the traumatically realistic “active shooter drills” currently held on 95% of public school campuses:

“In a white paper out Tuesday, the groups say they do not recommend active shooter training for students. And if schools do choose to do these drills with students, they shouldn’t be unnecessarily realistic and schools should give plenty of warning. Plus, they should be done with age-appropriateness and sensitivity toward children with special needs or those who have experienced trauma.

The group Moms Demand Action for Gun Safety in America, part of Everytown, focuses on raising awareness about gun violence. But founder Shannon Watts said she was increasingly hearing from parents whose children were terrified by active shooter drills. So, she started to look at emerging evidence that “these drills cause trauma, whether it’s anxiety or depression, sleeplessness, worsening school performance in kids.” There are reports, Watts says, of drills getting “over the top” with things like teachers being shot with pellet guns. “When we have a fire drill in a school, we don’t set a fire in the hallway.””

Horrifying tale of modern-day barbarism over at Reason.

Court-ordered shock therapy, where electrodes are attached to the temples, through which electricity flows and triggers brain seizures, is still practiced in Connecticut today. One patient has apparently been forced to undergo the procedure 500 times in a single year. The side effects include memory loss, cognitive impairment, and a host of others, as one can imagine.

As if I post a quote a day here. But I digress. This nugget is from page 54 of Annie Dillard’s slim work of genius, The Writing Life. In this particular passage she attempts to explain to a neighbor why, after admitting her hatred of it, she commits to writing at all:

“But I rallied and mustered and said that the idea was to learn things; that you learn a thing and then as a matter of course you learn the next thing, and the next thing…As I spoke he nodded precisely in the way that one nods at the utterances of the deranged.”

“If a consenting adult wants to engage in sex work, that is their right, and it should not be a crime”, said Tulsi. She is taking the humanitarian, and libertarian, position on a consensual transaction between two adults. The only controversy is not that the specific act is sexual in nature, but that money exchanges hands. Legalizing it, giving sex workers full access to legal protection, courts, banks, et cetera, would be enormously empowering for those currently forced to navigate the dangerous, disease-ridden black market. Legalize it, and watch the violent and abusive black market pimps go bankrupt, and let the innovation and entrepreneurship of a multitude of free individuals heal the yawning social fracture that the prohibition of sex work has created. Of course, it will put thousands of law enforcement officers out of work. But that would be an astounding improvement. Far less busybodies with badges harassing people who are harming no one. Legalize it and deal a fatal blow to the modern-day enslavement of girls currently taking place all over the country due to the enormous unsatisfied demand for this service.

Authoritarianism is always sold under the label of humanitarianism. The fine print is never discussed, nor are the possible unintended consequences. Yet it never ceases to amaze me when activists for a particular liberty immediately throw their support behind an authoritarian measure wearing the humanitarian skin suit. The one piece of legislative abomination in particular is Florida’s Senate Bill 1266, the “Stop The Social Media Censorship Act“, which would strangle social media platforms in the state with authoritarian speech codes, and would certainly ensure social media’s rapid departure from such a repressive environment.

Liberty means liberty for all, including owners of private social media companies. It’s indecent and immoral to step into a bakery and demand a cake that they don’t want to bake you. It is equally indecent to create a free profile on a social media website, set up shop, and throw your weight around like you own the place. You’re a customer, and if you don’t like the service, leave. Owners of businesses have just as much of a right to refuse service as you, the customer, do of refusing to patronize them. There are plenty of other internet platforms to choose from. Or you could create your own, as I have here. I use Facebook, yet I’m able to understand the immorality of attempting to use government to coerce my will upon the private company. I also understand the unimaginable danger of giving government ever more power over the choices of private businesses, and private individuals.

“if you don’t like the service, leave” is a great motto in a free society. It affirms the rights of business owners not to be bullied by mobs of people with an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Yet the irony is that, in a free society, few businesses will take that attitude for fear of losing their customer base to their competitors. The power of choice that the consumer holds is what keeps business in line, producing what they want. No tyrannical piece of legislation required.

We need to rid ourselves of the belief, instilled in us at a young age through government schools, that our elected officials hold a magic wand, that when waved will produce a paradise devoid of side-effects or unintended consequences. This is the most dangerous superstition, which boiled down is a faith in legislative violence. “If only we allow the kind of violence that we support, the world will be made better!”  We clamor for a nanny state and then wonder when it also wants to forcibly inject us with poison.

Bear witness to the power of propaganda, and the primitive desire of our vanity to virtue signal when given an arena. This mother, along with the doctors, forcibly, and by the sound of it, violently, restrained her 6 year-old son in order to administer a flu shot. This event will more than likely be a traumatic flashpoint in this child’s mind for the rest of his life. And not merely the violence of the event, but the fact that the child contracted toxic synovitis from the vaccine, crippling him for two weeks. The mom states that she will continue to vaccinate. How is it possible that the maternal instinct could be short-circuited, the instinct to protect one’s child is subverted, and harm to the child is the result of the actions of the parent? This is the power of propaganda over the mind and emotions of parents, used up and down the line of the medical industry, to induce fear and anxiety, and then Pied Piper those emotions to the tune of their choice, leading them to over-testing, over-injecting, and over-medicating healthy, developing children.

“My son got toxic synovitis after the flu shot. And I will still vaccinate.”

Amazing discussion between Steve Bannon and Bill Maher in that Maher opitomizes the elite disdain to learn from past mistakes that led to a Trump presidency, and ensures a second Trump term.