Many are puzzled at the popular appeal of socialist sympathizer Bernie Sanders. Don’t those youngsters know that you can’t just have everything handed to you? He’s promising welfare and, horrors, socialism! Well, yes, yes they do, but Bernie’s supporters see the enormous hypocrisy in the opponents of his brand of welfare-statism. What needs to be understood, crucially, is that the United States has engaged in socialism for decades, albeit socialism exclusively for the Warfare State. Everyone who is suddenly decrying “socialism”, the sound of pearls audibly clutched, chooses to ignore the debt-funded war socialism they’ve allowed to continue. Bernie supporters see this, and think, “why not spend the trillions here at home rather than wasting it on military misadventures?”

No socialism at all, for anyone or any industry, should be the goal. But denouncing socialism in the abstract while also remaining complacent about the outrageous wealth transfers occurring in the name of national security destroys the argument that so many are making in the face of Sanders’ campaign. Socialism for the rich and well-connected does exist, as do regulations that shield the established rich from the dynamic, virtuous forces of a competitive market that would distribute wealth to where it truly belongs.

Bernie supporters are misguided, yet do have their heart in the right place. They see massive inequalities of wealth. They see the trillion-dollar wars and wonder why that money isn’t being spent here at home, on programs that would help people here. The right answer to the trillion dollar wars is that government should never have gotten their dirty paws on the money in the first place. It should’ve remained in the pockets of the people who earned it, or it shouldn’t have been printed, or it shouldn’t have been stolen from future generations. The federal government’s power to print and borrow is the real culprit, and should be stripped utterly. That power should be the focus of the outrage.

The recognition that something is dreadfully wrong, combined with a sincere desire to fix it, is the correct starting point that will lead to social change. The problem, though, is that these Bernie bros are sitting ducks for the wave of socialist pseudo-intellectuals who are exploiting their naive idealism and channeling it into supporting totalitarian pipe dreams that will achieve the exact opposite of their goal. But it’s just a simple step for Bernie supporters to realize that the true path to radical humanitarian change is through a policy of unrestricted liberty. They only need to look at marijuana legalization. Did they support it? But it was a revolution for the marketplace, for dreaded “capitalism”. And yet it created a miracle. If only they could apply that same radical principle, of removing every government-created barrier to voluntary exchange, they would realize that their goal of lifting the poorest, most at-risk among us lies in, not socialism, but liberty.

Amazing Jimmy Dore stand-up, along with his panel comedians, in which he explains how the Political Class is attempting to exhume the “Russian interference” narrative in order to attack both Trump and Sanders:

Pfizer and Merck both spent a quarter million each, and just in Maine. How the hell is this corporate influence being tolerated? Notice the vaccinate-at-any-cost group, Every Child By Two, also donated a massive amount. But it’s really just more Pharma money, laundered through an organization that gives i a faux-scientific prestige.

Hat tip to the Facebook group, The Thinking Mom’s Revolution.

House Bill 3227, which would allow cannabis deliveries to patients unable to travel to a dispensary, passed unanimously out of committee, and is headed for a vote by the legislature, which will surely pass.

Interesting piece at National Interest regarding the healing potential of yet another psychedelic compound. 

If there’s one act of legislative authoritarianism guaranteed to draw thousands of opponents to the state capitol, it’s a mandatory vaccination bill. The most recent example being bill 5044 in Connecticut, which would eliminate the religious and philosophical exemption currently allowed for school children. A hearing and testimony on the bill drew thousands of opponents to the state capitol, many of whom remained all night until their voice was heard.

Other examples abound. New Jersey, for instance. A mandatory vaccine bill in that state’s legislature died amid the protests of thousands of citizens who gathered around the capitol building for over 8 hours.

And here in my home state of Oklahoma, the very active and very effective Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights organization rallies hundreds to the state capitol for Parental Rights Day, to protect the parents of this state from the encroachments of a medical community that appears to care more about forcing a pharmaceutical product on as many children as possible than the rights of those children or their parents.

We are to believe that the mandated use of a product that has resulted in over $4 billion in injury settlements and whose manufacturers are shielded from legal liability over vaccine injuries should be mandatory? A steadily increasing schedule of vaccines required of children, combined with a steady rise in autoimmune and neurological disorders among US children, means that fewer and fewer people are buying the “safe and effective” line, and they will show up in thousands at the mere hint of a mandatory vaccine bill.

It’s no surprise that the cartelized, anti-competitive, authoritarian organizations that comprise the U.S. medical establishment opposes the protection of parental rights; after all, children are an extremely profitable market, but that profitability can only be tapped once the power of parents to intercede is removed. And so it is no surprise that the Oklahoma State Medical Association opposed House Bill 3014, which would update the current ‘Parent’s Bill of Rights’ to simply and explicitly include protections against medical procedures performed on children without parental consent. It would also discourage doctors from retaliating against the parents of patients by involving child protective services in the event that the parents disagreed with the doctor’s medical opinion. Seems like a fairly common sense, straightforward assertion of rights in a country of free individuals, right? The problem is that very little liberty exists for the average American citizen when they deal with the healthcare industry in this country. It’s authoritarianism is deeply entrenched, and any exercise or assertion of parental rights is seen as an act of defiance that the medical authorities attempt to punish, whether through intimidation, or the involvement of law enforcement.

The HB 3014, voted on February 19th, unfortunately did not pass out of committee.

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.”