Free Republic

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his "700 Club" viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's is justifiable because the disease is "a kind of death." During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder. "I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after...

PHILADELPHIA - It seems the Eagles aren't the only team in town ready for some NFL action. The lawyers of Anapol, Schwartz, Weiss, Cohan, Feldman and Smalley have taken on the National Football League in federal court. Seven former professional football players -- among them former Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jim McMahon and Philadelphia Eagles lineman Gerry Feehery -- retained the Philadelphia law firm, alleging the NFL failed ...

Researchers discover common cause of all forms of ALSCHICAGO --- The underlying disease process of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS and Lou Gehrig's disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims, has long eluded scientists and prevented development of effective therapies. Scientists weren't even sure all its forms actually converged into a common disease process. But a new Northwestern Medicine study for the first time has identified a common cause of all forms of ALS. The basis of the disorder is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain. Optimal functioning of...

Psychologist Margaret Gatz explains what 25 years of research have taught her about reducing the risk of dementia. Margaret Gatz, a psychologist at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, is investigating the causes of Alzheimer's disease. To that end, she has studied the health of more than 14,000 Swedish twins for more than 25 years. On 5 August, she will tell the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington DC what the study has taught her about how to reduce risk for the disease. Nature got a preview. What first motivated you to study Alzheimer's disease? Before...

GILBERT - Arizona Sen. John McCain held a town hall in Gilbert this morning and the economy took center stage. The town hall was focused on the nations' economic troubles and McCain said the on-going financial problems would be much greater had Congress not passed a bill to keep the country from defaulting on its debt. McCain said he is very concerned with the recent S&P downgrade of the United States' credit rating and views it as a wake-up call to the nation. "It will cost more to borrow money and it is a very serious situation," McCain said. McCain...

(snip) MCCAIN: ... just wants to spend money. Hello? He just wants to spend more money. You and I are -- remember when Ronald Reagan said the worst deal he ever made was when he sat down with the Democrats and said they would cut spending $3 and raise taxes for every $1. Guess what? They raised taxes and they didn’t cut spending. That’s why the Tea Partiers and others would – I’m not a Tea Partier -- but the fact is, we need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We couldn’t get it through the Senate as the...

After savagely tearing into conservatives on the floor of the Senate, McCain is on Hannity right now, claiming that he was attacking Obama, not conservatives. Then, he claims that no-one has a better conservative fiscal record than he, because he "fought the Bush -uh spending." He did? No, he fought the Bush TAX CUTS.

Dementia sufferers are being killed by doctors in Holland under the country’s euthanasia laws, official figures are to reveal. A total of 21 patients with early-stage dementia, including Alzheimer’s, died by lethal injection last year, according to a forthcoming annual report. This is the first time dementia sufferers have been included in the country’s euthanasia statistics. None of the cases is thought to have involved any illegal act on the part of health professionals, and each time the patient was considered capable of giving their consent. But the figures have caused alarm among critics who say the pool of patients...

June 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Euthanasia is on the rise in the Netherlands, and it is taking an even uglier turn than many would have expected. Cases of euthanasia have risen from 2,500 in 2009 to 2,700 in 2010; but even more shocking, last year 21 persons suffering from the early stages of dementia, but who were otherwise in good health, were euthanized. All of these 21 “mercy killings” were subsequently approved by the official euthanasia follow-up commission. This 2010 annual report on euthanasia has yet to be published, but key figures were released by the official news channel, NOS,...

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Thursday the survival of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime could spell the end of NATO. “Logically you can exact that if he [Gadhafi] outlasts NATO, the Arab spring is over,” said Graham. "…He will take it out on his people, I think it will affect the price of oil and would be the end of NATO because NATO taking on Gadhafi and losing -- its going to be very hard for that organization to go off to another war and be taken seriously.” Speaking on the Senate floor, Graham and...

Sunlit Uplands readers know that we bow to no one in our utter contempt for the Marxist who is deliberately dividing and undermining this country from the Oval Office in the White House. Yet we are also the first to acknowledge that no one bears more responsibility for the election of Barack Hussein Obama than George W. Bush. We were, therefore, sorry to read this morning that his close friend and political protege, Texas Governor Rick Perry, has added South Carolina to his summer travel plans — his first trip to an early presidential primary nominating state. South Carolinians have...

Carter: 'Probably superior' to other ex-presidents *** UPDATE 3:59 pm ET *** Former President Carter issued a written statement after his comments aired: "What I meant was, for 27 years the Carter Center has provided me with superior opportunities to do good." In an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, former President Jimmy Carter, who has been a target of the right through the years, lauded his own post-presidency, telling Williams, "I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents." Carter, who is out with a new book defending his legacy, backed up...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, a leading Republican senator insisted Thursday. Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, also rejected the argument that any form of torture is critical to U.S. success in the fight against terrorism.

TOPSFIELD (MA)— Four nursing assistants have been fired and two top administrators replaced at one of the state's top-rated nursing homes, in the wake of patient abuse allegations. A report completed last month by state investigators alleged that at least a dozen residents of the Masconomet Healthcare Center in Topsfield were subjected to various forms of verbal abuse and humiliation — including one patient with dementia who was recorded on a cell-phone camera answering questions in a confused manner, to the amusement of a nursing assistant who then shared the video with coworkers. The report says a group of four...

Older people suffering from mild memory and cognition problems may be less likely to progress to full-blown Alzheimer’s disease if they receive treatment for medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, a new study has found. In 2004, researchers at Daping Hospital in Chongqing, China, began following 837 residents ages 55 and older who had mild cognitive impairment but not dementia. Of these, 414 had at least one medical condition that can impair blood flow to the brain. After five years, 298 of the participants had developed Alzheimer’s. Subjects who had had high blood pressure or other vascular...

There's still no foolproof way to predict who will develop dementia, but brain scientists say they have identified a new clue: Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm. A preliminary new study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the neurodegenerative process responsible for dementia also causes deterioration of regions of the brain responsible for detecting insincere speech. "These patients cannot detect lies," study author Dr. Katherine Rankin, of the university's Memory and Aging Center, said in a written statement. "This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier." It...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Monday he feared a "stalemate" has developd in Libya that would lead to a more radical government in that country. McCain, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. should revive its air attacks to incapacitate forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi's regime. "All we need to do is get sufficient air power in there to really nail Gadhafi's forces, and we can succeed," McCain said on KFYI radio. "A stalemate is a terrible outcome, because if you have a stalemate you open the door for radical Islamists to come in and...

Washington (CNN)-GOP Sen. John McCain is in need of a tech lesson. In an appearance on ABC's "This Week," the senator from Arizona said that iPads and iPhones are "built in the United States of America." But every techie knows that they are, in fact, built in China. McCain touted free trade agreements during the interview and voiced his agreement with President Obma that "innovation is the key to us being able to restore our economy." And though the designs for the iPad and iPhone are home grown in California, the actual manufacturing takes place overseas, in China. "I think...

Given the contentious relationship between his followers and many in the conservative movement, it’s safe to say that Rep. Ron Paul’s address to CPAC this year was one of the more anticipated speeches of the political holiday weekend. And Rep. Paul delivered: railing against the “neo-Jacobins” that passed the PATRIOT Act, calling for drastic cuts in military spending, and a passionate repudiation of the Federal Reserve. Opening with a jubilant recognition of the results of last November’s midterms– and, especially, the election of his son Rand to the Senate– the tenor of Paul’s speech was mostly combative towards the more...

Wherever it's buried in the body, a disease leaves traces in the blood—or so the thinking goes. But finding these biomarkers, which can help catch the disease early on, has been an exercise in futility, with one promising candidate after another losing its luster once it receives scrutiny. A team of chemists and other researchers now propose a new way to pick up biomarkers with a blood test: by screening for antibodies that the body makes in response to particular diseases. So far, the group has reported results for only a small number of Alzheimer's disease patients. But they are...