Free Republic

What is wrong with this picture? It's one of those things that you don't get, until you get it. Unless you are eternally empathetic, you look at this photo and don't see much wrong at all. To Anne Belanger, mother of Miles, the photo is unbearable to look at. When the class portrait for her son's Grade 2 class came home, she opened it excitedly, and immediately shoved it back in the envelope. She couldn't look at it. It broke her heart. Anne's son, Miles, has Spinal Muscular Atrophy. At the age of 13 months, his parents were told that...

A disabled South Carolina man was pushed off a moped and then beaten with his own prosthetic leg by an assailant who was arrested early today for assault, cops charge.

They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable. Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned. The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day. “My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.

Hiding The Unemployed: Disability And The Politics Of Stats Wendy McElroyApril 26, 2013 Some statistics cannot be understood without being set within a political framework, because they reflect politics as much as, or more than, they do reality. The unemployment rate is an example and a cautionary tale. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the seasonally adjusted official unemployment rate for February fell to a four-year national low of 7.7%. While the White House cautiously congratulated itself, Republicans quickly pointed to what is often called the real unemployment rate; it stood at 14.3%.The BLS looks at six categories...

I am a disabled combat veteran. I served in Iraq and worked in Afghanistan. I took an IED because my country asked me too, and I was injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. I have a Purple Heart and an ARCOM with Valor. I fully expect to be treated differently when I am visiting another country - when I am in America I expect equality and toleration; but what I experienced today is something that I never would have thought I'd have to go through in my own country. The country I fought for! I am a skydiver with...

Mililani - For half a dozen former Kipapa Elementary School students, room P-10 was a little class of horrors. Hawaii News Now has learned that the families of six disabled students have now come forward with allegations of abuse by staffers at this Mililani School. The latest allegations come from the parents of an autistic girl who say school staffers force fed their daughter, often to the point of vomiting. Court documents filed in U.S. District Court say that in some instances the girl -- who often had trouble eating -- was forced to eat food she threw up. People familiar with the case say the girl also was...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday linked outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) to one of the “saddest” Senate votes in years and suggested DeMint’s values won't be missed on Capitol Hill. Pelosi criticized the resigning South Carolina lawmaker and other GOP senators for voting Tuesday against Senate ratification of a United Nations treaty on rights for the disabled. “For them [DeMint and other treaty opponents] to slap the face of our veterans, of people with disabilities, of families with children with disabilities, that was one of the saddest days,” Pelosi said in the Capitol, taking care to avoid...

Lately, you’ve probably been asking: “What ever happened to Rick Santorum? The guy who ran for president in the sweater vest? The one who compared homosexuality to bestiality and did 50 push-ups every morning?” It’s certainly been on my mind. Santorum is still in there swinging. Lately, he’s been on a crusade against a dangerous attempt by the United Nations to help disabled people around the world. This week, he won! The Senate refused to ratify a U.N. treaty on the subject. The vote, which fell five short of the necessary two-thirds majority, came right after 89-year-old Bob Dole, the...

Rights: The Senate is considering a treaty which says "disability is an evolving concept" and which would infringe on U.S. sovereignty and the right to raise our children as American families see fit. Those who thought that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) adequately guaranteed the rights of the handicapped to have access to all facets of American life were apparently wrong. The U.S. Senate is considering ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which President Obama signed in 2009 and which goes well beyond mandating wheel-chair ramps for public buildings. CRPD doesn't even bother to...

Rights: The Senate is considering a treaty which says "disability is an evolving concept" and which would infringe on U.S. sovereignty and the right to raise our children as American families see fit. Those who thought that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) adequately guaranteed the rights of the handicapped to have access to all facets of American life were apparently wrong. The U.S. Senate is considering ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which President Obama signed in 2009 and which goes well beyond mandating wheel-chair ramps for public buildings. CRPD doesn't even bother to...

To Chy Johnson, Queen Creek High School's Bulldogs are bigger heroes off the football field. The 16-year-old sophomore was born with a brain disorder and came home every day crying from constant bullying until the Arizona students took her under their wing. 'They save me because I won’t get hurt again,' Chy said. Before befriending the team it was a struggle just to make it to the final bell. 'The girl threw trash at me,' Chy said, describing one of the bullies. The team took notice after Chy's mother, finally fed up with seeing her daughter terrorized, called on a...

<p>A debt collector, angered that a disabled US Army veteran was living off of disability payments, told him he “should have died” in war instead of "taking advantage of" other Americans.</p> <p>“If you would have served our country better you would not be a disabled veteran living off Social Security while the rest of us honest Americans work our asses off,” one of the agency’s debt collectors allegedly told the vet. “Too bad, you should have died.”</p>

A woman was awarded Social Security disability benefits because of "crippling hand pain" from carpel tunnel syndrome, but still managed to work as a bartender. A judge coached a disability applicant to lie about paying rent to boost his payments from the government. ‘I think you could flip a coin for anybody who came before the Social Security commission for disability and get it right just as often as the ALJs do, - Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.’ A man with history of cocaine addiction was approved for disability because of back pain and headaches, which he claimed could be controlled...

PEOPLE with severe learning disabilities are being let down by health services in Staffordshire, according to a damning new report. The document found significant numbers 'trapped' in inappropriate and outdated NHS services which are both expensive and robbing them of the chance to lead better, more independent lives. The county also relies too much on hospital beds for the residents because of an inability to support people in local housing and the community. Investigators found one patient who had been kept in a bed at the Harplands Hospital treatment and assessment unit, Hartshill, for five years. Social services bosses told...

Via e-mail today July 25, 2012 Senate Committee Vote Today on UN Treaty—Keep Calling! Michael Farris is founder and chairman of Homeschooling Legal Defense Assocation HSLDA, and homeschooling father of 10. Dear HSLDA Members and Friends: After a brief postponement the U.S. Senate has decided to continue to push forward the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and has scheduled a mark-up and committee vote for tomorrow. As we have mentioned in previous updates, HSLDA believes that this treaty, while sounding good in name, could become a tool to restrict our rights as citizens and...

The United Nations in collusion with Obama's globalists has cooked up another scheme to slice off a piece of U.S. sovereignty and put us under global government. The plan is to stampede the Senate into ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD. This particular piece of globalist mischief had been unnoticed since President Obama ordered U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to sign this treaty on July 30, 2009. Now he is trying to ram it through to ratification. The notion that the U.N. can provide more benefits or protections for persons with disabilities than the U.S....

Senator John Kerry announced yesterday that he plans to pass the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities before July 26—just 13 days from today. He has scheduled a formal committee vote next Thursday—July 19. This is an unprecedented attempt to jam a binding international treaty through the Senate without proper time for debate or consideration.

I have to credit our own Mike Shedlock for writing about how Obama’s been able to drive down the topline unemployment number even though unemployment remains as a big problem today as it has ever been. I’m often reluctant to piggy back on a contributor’s work, but when something is really newsworthy, I think it’s justified. Yesterday Mish pointed out that:In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000. In the last month, actual employment fell by 169,000, but the unemployment rate...

After I posted on the sharia compliance at Wegman's and their special halal checkout here, an Atlas reader shared this experience with a "tolerant" religion of peacenik. Remember, there is no golden rule under Islam. Get this one Pam[ela], I have a disability which requires that I use a service dog. His name is Ray and he helps to counterbalance, alert and guide me. Under Federal Law, The Americans with Disabilites Act of 1990, a disabled person with their service dog must be allowed public accomodation and admittance. Among such places include Airplanes, Public Transportation, Businesses which serve the gerneral...

Taking Mercy, an edition of the Global TV program “16x9” in Canada, concerns a mother, Annette Corriveau, who wants her children with disabilities to be killed by euthanasia. The show also features Robert Latimer, the man who killed his daughter Tracy in 1993. Tracy had Cerebral Palsy. The show speaks to pro-euthanasia ethicist Arthur Schaefer who suggests that Robert Latimer should have been given “mercy.” Schaefer also suggests that Corriveau should simply stop feeding her children, but Corriveau says she does not wish to starve her children to death. This is a dangerously one-sided show. Taking Mercy represents the first...