Free Republic

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...