REPUBLIC REBORN

H/t Facebook page, ‘Malarkey’:

The best take so far on the ridiculously biased treatment against Sanders, in favor of Warren:

Oregon activists are currently gathering signatures to get the Psilocybin Services Act on the ballot in the state, which would allow licensed facilities to administer psilocybin on site in a safe and supervised environment. The movement has also earned the support of Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenaur, who was a vocal proponent of marijuana legalization.

Psilocybin has proven its power as a true “anti-depressant” that has succeeded where other, synthetic Pharma drugs have failed. The FDA has called it a “breakthrough therapy” for depression, and has shown an 80% success rate in smoking cessation. A psilocybin nasal spray has also been developed to treat PTSD and depression. This is truly unbelievable. Really, we need to pause and appreciate what is happening. The dogma of a century regarding drug prohibition is crumbling like a salt idol in Gomorrah. People are shaking off the chains they didn’t even know were there, and taking back their lives and their liberty.

We are living in strange, fascinating, and wonderful times. We have all witnessed a true miracle within the last three years: the cascading legalization of cannabis, along with the beautiful, blossoming innovation and entrepreneurship that has followed. It’s a real-world miracle for hundreds of thousands of people, and if everyone would stop looking to the sky or the government for miracles, they would see it as such.

The Psychedelic Renaissance is here. Pharma is a dinosaur, and their poisoned pill mills will follow them into extinction. The people will soon have easy and cheap access to an even greater variety of real medicine, and real healing will begin to occur. We are witness to a turning point in human evolution, in the sense that we are becoming more human. Yes, that is very optimistic, particularly so given the fact that many of us are addicted to various apocalypse prophecies, an admittedly very human trait. But the world is getting better. Contra Greta Thunberg, this past decade has been the most prosperous, strange, and interesting, that our species has ever created. We are living through an historical and evolutionary turning point. Maybe it’s more like a hockey stick. Let’s pause to appreciate that, and assist this free evolution as far and wide as possible.

The CNN moderator’s openly hostile treatment of Sanders during the most recent debate, attempting to brand him as a sexist by continuously referring to comments that he’s never made, and consistently denied, is bizarre to say the least. CNN used fabricated comments supposedly made by Sanders telling Elizabeth Warren that women can’t get elected President. It’s ironic, considering Warren’s well-established record of lying about almost everything, including her heritage (she claimed that she was Native American for decades), that she was fired from a teaching position because she was pregnant, and that she was never a Republican.  CNN’s behavior during the debate should once and for all expose the network as a tool for the Democratic party establishment, all of whom clearly hate Sanders and wish to snuff out his momentum once and for all. I imagine it will backfire.

From page 83 of volume 2 of his wisdom-packed trilogy, Law, Legislation, and Liberty:

“While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.”

I have to say that the term “centrism” is really nothing more than a euphemism for someone who compromises their principles and those of their voters. Voters can’t get excited for someone like that, and why would they? Voters want someone with a spine, someone who won’t compromise. Pay attention to Grant’s rant about all the great centrists throughout history. His point is that there are none. A “centrist” stance aids your enemy, and centrism as a Democratic strategy will ensure that Donald Trump handily wins a second term. And due to this “centrism or nothing” strategy, the Democratic party is going to throw away their chance to nominate Tulsi Gabbard, the greatest Democratic candidate in my lifetime and no centrist at all but a person of principle. The party would prefer to lose to Donald Trump than elect a candidate that they can’t control. How pathetic.

The Intercept: Full Disclosure: News Pundits’ Hidden Arms Industry Ties: All those war cheerleaders on television are employed as lobbyists for the weapons industry.

Unz: Did Pompeo dupe Trump into the Soleimani hit?

BONNIE KRISTIAN: Escalation breeds escalation, in Iran and beyond

PHILIP GIRALDI: America the repugnant. Assassinating foreign leaders is an act of war.

Reason: “It’s a lie, but it’s fun”: An officer’s falsified report leads to a man’s suicide

American Spectator: Virginia’s giddy gun controllers

Miami New Times: Medical marijuana could replace opioid use, according to FIU study

Australian Financial Review: Psychedelic drugs could be the next medical breakthrough

The War Machine doesn’t care that the Afghanistan war has been an abysmal failure for two decades, the death and destruction to be dealt will proceed. The latest instance of this is the recent drone strike on Shindand, a small town in Afghanistan. The strike killed at least 60 civilians according to one report. We shouldn’t wonder why they hate us, nor should we be surprised when the next wave of reprisals come.

Campaigners for ‘Yes on 805‘ are out in force in Oklahoma, gathering signatures to get their ballot initiative up for a vote, as I discovered firsthand during a trip to the local Sprouts. As I walked out of the store, a polite young man with a clipboard asked if I would like to sign his petition to get 805 on the ballot. He quickly and clearly explained that State Question 805 would eliminate the “sentence enhancements” that prosecutors can tack on to the sentences of non-violent offenders, which can add up to years, even decades, more behind bars. These sentence enhancements are partly the cause of Oklahoma’s status as “prison capital of the world”, meaning that this state locks up more citizens per capita than anywhere else on the planet. This practice inhumanely and unnecessarily tears apart families and destroys lives. 805 would be a necessary and humane change, and reining in out-of-control prosecutors would be a step in the right direction.

I spoke with the gentleman for several minutes and wondered aloud, “why are non-violent offenders put behind bars at all?” Surely there is another method of punishment that is short of locking them up. Taking away driving privileges, a prohibition on certain financial transactions, surely there is another option that allows them to remain at home with their families and continue to work in some capacity. The signature gatherer agreed with me, attributing the barbaric practice in part on over-zealous prosecutors eager to gain more “victories” in court. That, combined with public apathy has allowed the current state of affairs to continue unrestrained for so long. But the criminal justice reform movement currently underway in Oklahoma will put an end to it once and for all, and it’s just another sign that the world is truly getting better.