Free Republic

The report released by Connecticut yesterday on Adam Lanza’s massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six adults in Newtown makes clear how well we protected his civil rights. The report details his “mental health issues,” which in reality were strong evidence that he had developed a severe mental illness. He had been afflicted with an autism-like syndrome since childhood and had been formally diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder. This diagnosis by itself is not associated with an increased propensity for violent behavior. However, in recent years, Lanza had developed symptoms of a more severe mental illness, which occurs in approximately 5 percent...

An Ohio couple committed a crime when they recently gave child welfare officials a 9-year-old boy they raised from infancy, according to a prosecutor, after they said he was displaying aggressive behavior and threatened the family with a knife. Forty-nine-year-old Cleveland Cox and 52-year-old Lisa Cox pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a Butler County court to charges of nonsupport of dependents. **SNIP** Adolfo Olivas, an attorney appointed by the court to protect the boy's interests, has said the emotionally hurt and confused child is now receiving help that the parents should have gotten for him.

Police admitted that the fatal shooting of a mental patient armed with scissors could have been prevented if the road sergeant equipped with a Taser had been at the scene in time. Michael Eligon, 29, was walking toward police with the weapon and a ‘blank stare’ when he was shot three times by an officer in Toronto, an inquest heard. A chilling video of the dramatic shooting shown to the inquest captured Mr Eligon’s last moments as he walked toward police who had their guns drawn and yelled ‘drop it’ on February 3 last year. Under cross examination, Constable Scott...

Former Virginia governor candidate Creigh Deeds is fighting for his life after he was brutally stabbed by his own 24-year-old son, who then committed suicide - just one day after he was committed to a psychiatric ward. Deeds, a state senator, is in critical condition at University of Virginia hospital after he was found in his home in rural Bath County. Deeds was stabbed multiple times in the head and torso and lost large amounts of blood. The veteran Democratic state legislator's son Gus was found shot dead, as well. Gus had been evaluated by psychiatrists at a mental hospital...

We’re all a teensy bit mad, but how many true psychopaths do we have among us? Apparently, more than you think. “Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial character, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality,” explains Eric Barker, in The Week. Now, think about all the people who might fit that description. Then, compare it to the list psychologist Kevin Dutton compiled in The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police in Washington are reviewing the use of officers' deadly force in the killing of a woman who tried to ram her car through a White House barrier, a shooting her family says was unjustified.

Washington (CNN) -- Authorities investigating why a Connecticut woman rammed barricades and led police on a chase near the U.S. Capitol found medications in her apartment to treat schizophrenia and other mental disorders, a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation said Friday

Tuesday morning, seven National Park Service employees were seen erecting and tending to a barricade around the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. One NPS employee was operating a forklift. There usually aren't any NPS employees working at the World War II memorial. A couple hours later, when an Honor Flight of World War II veterans arrived, accompanied by Democratic and Republican members of Congress, the fences blocking the memorial were easily moved away, allowing the veterans to enter. But the barriers are still at the memorial, and they've been reinforced. This morning, I walked by the memorial and...

FULL TITLE: 'She thought President Obama was stalking her': Dental hygienist shot dead after ramming her car into the White House 'suffered delusions due to postpartum depression' The Connecticut mother who was gunned down by police yesterday after ramming a White House barrier with her young daughter in the car thought President Obama was stalking her, law sources said today. Investigators have found indications that Miriam Carey suffered delusions due to a history of mental illness, NBC Connecticut reports. Last night her mother revealed the 34-year-old has suffered from postpartum depression since giving birth to her daughter Erica last year....

Day 4 of shutdown: Vets are going to need wire cutters to visit WWII memorial.The fences/barricades were not wired shut when I was here on Tuesday.

The woman who led authorities on a chase from the White House to the Capitol before she was killed by police may have thought that President Barack Obama was stalking her, law enforcement sources told NBC News. The sources said that the woman, Miriam Carey, had a history of mental health problems. The chase, on Thursday afternoon, stirred panic in the capital and briefly stopped the mechanisms of government. It happened two weeks after a man shot 12 people to death at the Washington Navy Yard. Members of the House and Senate, in a standoff over the government shutdown, were...

Miriam Carey (right), is the woman identified in news reports as the suspect in a shooting incident that left Capitol Hill on lockdown for a brief period Thursday afternoon, and has now reportedly been shot dead by police. This photo is from a newsletter announcing her having been hired as a hygenist at a Connecticut periodontics practice. Advanced Periodontics -ibtimes.com A woman with a one year old child unsuccessfully tried to ram her car through the security gates of the White House today. The police and Secret Service pursued the woman, and even though reports say she was not...

Video at site. 60 Minutes has an interesting segment entitled “Untreated Mental Illness and Imminent Danger?” Except for some stigmatizing language, this is an excellent segment that sums up the serious consequences of replacing psychiatric treatment with incarceration.

In a revelation that has long been rumored about, Hillary will soon announce that she is a bisexual. Story comes complete with two sources. According to Gennifer Flowers, who had an affair with Bill Clinton for many years, Bill told her that Hillary was bisexual. Flowers said that's why she was not surprised when she heard the rumor that Hillary and Huma Abedin were having an affair.

As more details emerge about Alexis, Lieberman said he was concerned that the shooting renews worries for people with mental illness and once again raises questions about how society treats disorders. “I think it immediately arouses fears and enhances stigma about people with mental illness, that they’re psychotic killers and wackos running amok,” Lieberman said. “It’s unfortunate.”

WASHINGTON (AP/WJLA) - The deadly attack at the Washington Navy Yard was carried out by one of the military's own: a defense contract employee and former Navy reservist who used a valid pass to get onto the installation and started firing inside a building, killing 12 people before he was slain in a gun battle with police. Sources also told the Associated Press that Alexis had received treatment for serious mental illness, including "hearing voices." The motive for the mass shooting - the deadliest on a military installation in the U.S. since the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009...

The former Navy reservist who killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday had exhibited signs of mental illness dating back more than a decade, including a recent episode in which he complained about hearing voices and of people sending “vibrations to his body” to prevent him from sleeping, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. Only a month ago, the gunman, Aaron Alexis, 34, was suffering from hallucinations so severe that he called the Newport Police Department in Rhode Island where he told officers he was on business. When officers came to his hotel room...

FULL TITLE: Inside the mind of the Navy Yard killer: 'Paranoid' gunman was being treated for mental illness and was left 'devastated after Thai girlfriend dumped him when she refused to move to the U.S.' Washington Naval Yard gunman Aaron Alexis began treatment for serious mental illness in August as friends of the shooter today revealed he was devastated last year when a Thai girlfriend left him broken-hearted. According to anonymous law enforcement officials, Alexis, 34, sought treatment from the Veterans Administration for paranoia, insomnia and possible schizophrenia just one month before his shooting rampage which claimed the lives of...

onathan and Sarah Adleta's children were doomed to a life of perverse cruelty before they were even born. Jonathan Adleta, a former Marine officer, dreamed of the day he could have "daddy-daughter sex." After Sarah Adleta became pregnant with a daughter, he said he would marry her only if she agreed to let him carry out that desire. When the couple had a son, Sarah Adleta was expected to have sexual encounters with him. In an Orlando federal courtroom this week, prosecutors and witnesses described, in disturbing and graphic detail, the heinous exploitation and abuse the couple's toddlers endured at...

The wish to live life as a woman pushed Lucas to the edge. “I sat my mom down and said ‘Tonight is the night. I’ll kill myself tonight if you don't help me,’” she said. Last year, Katie underwent sex change surgery. Then a pair of unlikely cupids, their moms, set them up on a blind date. Katie said, "I like my mom played match maker, just like every mom she wants to know who their kids are dating."

Consider a polarizing political and cultural figure who is seen by many people as a hero and by others as a traitor – and who has a powerful symbolic importance to members of a persecuted minority. This person adopts a new name and a new identity, which transforms his or her relationship to mainstream culture and confuses both the media and many members of the public. Many people refuse to accept the new name and identity, or treat it as a nickname or a passing fad. At age 25, this person is prosecuted for an act of conscience-driven defiance against...

Bradley Manning, the Army private sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison for leaking government files to WikiLeaks, announced Thursday in a statement to NBC's "Today" that he is, as of now, a she: "As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to...

Early this morning, Chelsea Manning – who was recently sentenced to 35 years for leaking classified documents – announced to the world that she would be transitioning: "As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use...

Convicted Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) is scheduled to receive $8,700 per month in government disability pay, as well as a partial federal pension of $45,000. That generous $8,700 in disability comes thanks to Jackson’s sudden development of a “mood disorder” as the federal government began looking to indict him. Jackson, who was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, had no history of mental illness during his prior 17 years in Congress. Rev. Jesse Jackson has defended his son’s claims of mental illness, stating to the court, “This time a year ago I thought we may have lost him.”

Watch as this stereotypical California liberal psychopath rattles on about how those who disagree with Obama should be tried for treason. We HAVE to fight or these people will plunge us into a socialist dictatorship we won’t easily free ourselves from. (3 minutes)

Full Title: Revealed: California killer who abducted teenage girl is shot dead in Idaho wilderness 18 years TO THE DAY after his own father committed suicide while holding another 16-year-old hostage James DiMaggio's kidnapping of 16-year-old Hannah Anderson, whom was said to have a 'crush on,' could be a horrific case of history repeating itself, it has been revealed. DiMaggio's father, also named James DiMaggio, shockingly killed himself 18 years ago to the day that DiMaggio was shot dead by an FBI agent in the Idaho wilderness. Hannah was found safe and is expected to be reunited with her father...

Billionaire George Soros’ philanthropy is bad news for Israel, according to an in-depth report from the NGO-Monitor watchdog group. The report listed the many causes in Israel, or pertaining to Israel, that are funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Among the top beneficiaries of OSF funding is Human Rights Watch, which has been criticized for targeting for criticism, and falsely libeling, the state of Israel. Another is J Street, which describes itself as “pro-Israel” but has been termed anti-Israel by others for, among other things, welcoming proponents of a boycott on Israel at its national conference and honoring IDF soldiers...

The lewd behavior that New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner engaged in suggests he is struggling with more than bad behavior and could be dealing with a variety of issues driving his problematic sexual behavior, experts said. But doctors, clinical psychologists and sex therapists differ on the role of biology, as well as issues such as anxiety, depression and insecurity. Fred Berlin, director of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said many of his patients exhibit behavior similar to Weiner’s, although he and other experts cautioned that they could not speak to the former congressman’s specific situation....

Allahpundit gave a great recap to one of the stranger political events of all time, the attempt by Anthony Weiner to argue for yet another opportunity for redemption. When he entered the mayoral race, Weiner said that he’d learned his lesson after the scandal broke in 2011 and was ready to return, but revelations in the past 24 hours show that he continued his extramarital Internet trolling well after the birth of his child last year. Nevertheless, his wife Huma Abedin stood by his side and declared that she supported Weiner and that the latest reports were old news and...

I live like a disabled person even though I'm physically healthy... and now want a surgeon to cut my spinal cord: Rare condition has made woman, 58, disown her legs * Chloe knew at 4 she was different and wanted to live as a disabled person * She wanted to wear leg braces like her aunt, hurt in an accident * Aged 9, she caused an accident to stop her own legs from working * Now she enjoys the excitement of downhill skiing - because she might fall * She spends most of her time in a wheelchair, but is...

Colorado officials say a suburban Colorado Springs school district discriminated against a 6-year-old transgender girl by preventing her from using the girls' bathroom, in what advocates described as the first such ruling in the next frontier in civil rights. Coy Mathis's family raised the issue after school officials at Eagleside Elementary in Fountain said the first-grader could use restrooms in either the teachers' lounge or in the nurse's office, but not the girls' bathroom. Coy's parents feared she would be stigmatized and bullied.

Several prominent medical associations have voiced opposition to a proposed gun control rule to increase the number of mental health records shared with the national background check system, saying it would only contribute to the stigma against mental illness. . . , a key proposition to add mental health records to a national background check database has been vociferously opposed by medical groups. Many voice concern that adding people deemed "mentally unfit" to the national database would increase the stigma of mental illness and dissuade many from seeking help. . . . . . . Unlike the Manchin-Toomey Bill to...

Anthony Weiner stepped down from Congress two years ago with a promise to “heal from the damage” of his sexual Twitter scandal. But sex therapy and addiction experts say the program he enrolled in shortly after his resignation wouldn’t have done much to address the root causes behind the scandal. Shortly after announcing his comeback bid for mayor of New York City, Weiner told reporters he had spent three days in July 2011 at the Gabbard Center, a psychiatric evaluation center in Houston, Texas. The program “wasn’t an addiction thing,” Weiner told the Daily News last month. “I mean, it...

In a cutting new article for the Wall Street Journal, two professors criticize the American Psychiatric Association for loosening the standards by which Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed. This, they argue, will make such diagnoses more likely and increase the amphetamine usage of the general public. “Symptoms of ADHD remain the same in the new edition” of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but with some changes: “The difference is that in the previous version of the manual, the first symptoms of ADHD needed to be evident by age 7 for a diagnosis to be made....

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention says that at any given moment about a quarter of American adults are mentally ill and that over the course of their lifetimes about half of all Americans will develop at least one mental illness. In addition, says the agency, "mental illness is associated with increased occurrence of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, asthma, epilepsy, and cancer."

Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm. More people now die of suicide than in car accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the findings in Friday’s issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides. Suicide has typically been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and...

Last spring, Frank Turkaly tried to kill himself. A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Vice President Joe Biden closed out a mental health conference at the White House Monday afternoon with a message of support to those affected by mental illness. "Let's use this moment to send a message to tens of millions of Americans, especially the young people and parents of young people all over this country," Biden said during remarks delivered in the White House's South Court Auditorium. "There's nothing, nothing to be ashamed of if you're struggling with mental issues. ... It's OK to talk about it, it's OK to ask for help, it's OK to acknowledge that it's frightening."

President Barack Obama said Monday that he wants to end the stigma of mental illness and enrolled the star power of actors Bradley Cooper and Glenn Close at a White House conference organized in response to the December shootings at a Connecticut elementary school. The event was designed to encourage those struggling with mental illness to seek treatment, although some attendees noted the government needs to provide more resources to meet that goal. Despite its origins, there was a notable lack of discussion of gun violence at the conference. The president never mentioned the matter as he opened the gathering...

A federal agency tasked with mental-health treatment makes the system worse.‘My son was only able to get treatment by killing his mother.” This was the testimony of Joe Bruce at congressional hearings on May 22. In 2006, Will Bruce, then 24 and suffering from schizophrenia, killed his mother, Amy, with a hatchet. “But an unbearable aspect of Amy’s death,” Bruce told members, “is that my own tax dollars helped make it possible.” Bruce was referring to the federally funded Disability Rights Center of Maine, whose employees coached Will on how to get out of the psychiatric hospital and avoid being...

In a bizarre op-ed in The Charleston Gazette last week, journalism professor Christopher Swindell argued that the National Rifle Association “advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America.” Stirring words, to be sure, but Swindell was hardly done — not even close. He also said that the NRA is guilty of “treason” “worthy of the firing squad.” “To support the new NRA president’s agenda of arming the populace for confrontation with the government is bloody treason,” Swindell charged in his wacky essay. After briefly playing the race card and alluding to the Civil War,...

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States. In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level. You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today,...

There is a gender gap for mental illness, with females being up to 40 percent more likely to develop some type of mental health condition than their male counterparts.

The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator. Where the productive man dreams of the things he might create if only left alone by his fellows, the Progressive dreams of the world he could create if only the lives and property of his fellows were at his disposal. The roots of his pathology lie in that oldest and most destructive of all human vices, the desire for the power to rule over other men. As...

“In the days of the Malleus, if the physician could find no evidence of natural illness, he was expected to find evidence of witchcraft: today, if he cannot diagnose organic illness, he is expected to diagnose mental illness.” (1) The Malleus Maleficarum was a 15th century text which instructed Inquisitors on the proper method of identifying, trying and burning witches. Though it was many years ago that renowned psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) used the example of the Malleus to comment on the diagnostic practices of his fellow physicians, it seems he might have been on to something as today psychiatrists...

“It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned with the study, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses.” But according to prominent psychiatrist and academic Thomas Szasz MD (1920-2012) “…this is a worthless and misleading definition.” “Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social, and ethical problems in living.” (1) Szasz write that “…the notion of a person ‘having a mental illness’ is scientifically crippling. It provides professional assent to a popular rationalization—namely that problems in living experienced and expressed in terms of...

The past 2 decades have witnessed an alarming increase in the number of Americans diagnosed with mental illness. Is modern psychiatry reaping an immense profit by impulsively—perhaps even deliberately–conflating mental illness with a growing, public aversion to the demands of personal responsibility? In the summer of 2011, The New York Review of Books published two lengthy articles by Marcia Angell, MD—Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. In these articles, Angell reviewed three books which take a critical look at psychiatry and its relationship with the...

Suicide. It remains a topic few health professionals want to discuss openly with their patients. It remains a topic avoided even by many mental health professionals. Policy makers see it as a black hole without an obvious solution. And now grim new statistics confirm a disturbing trend — more people are taking their own lives than ever before in the U.S. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released statistics yesterday showing that 33,687 people died in motor vehicle accidents, while nearly 5,000 more — 38,364 — died by suicide. Middle-aged Americans are making up the biggest leap in...

A proposed law introduced in the California State legislature would allow public school children to use bathrooms designated for members of the opposite sex, if that students' "gender identity" differed from the students biological sex. Assembly Bill 1266, introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who represents a section of the city of San Francisco would: "...require that a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil's record." While the bill does not specifically mention...