Study finds that belief in religious fundamentalism partly due to a brain impairment. Tell me something I didn't know.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness. 

Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group. 

Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview.

Once again this is one of the those things which seems so blatantly obvious, and which we are supposed to be too polite to say out loud.

If you literally believed in leprechauns, unicorns, or zombies people would legitimately be concerned about your mental health, but if you wrap it in a religious shroud then suddenly your insistence that magical beings are all around us looking out for our well being is taken as a testament to your deep faith.

Remember how Joy Behar was forced to publicly apologize for suggesting that Mike Pence was mentally ill for saying that Jesus Christ talked to him?

Joy Behar of `The View’ apologizes for comments she made about Vice President Mike Pence and Christianityhttps://t.co/KF1sNAcoYJ

— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) March 13, 2018

Well obviously she was right.

Donald Trump takes to Twitter to essentially reinforce the allegations in Michael Wolff's new book. Update!

Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

So that was from yesterday, when Trump decided to once again go on a tirade against Steve Bannon and this new book by Michael Woff.

However one of the things that the book pointed out is that Trump gave people nicknames in order to help remember them, and often repeated the same stories or phrases over and over again.

Which brings us to this tweet by Michael Moore yesterday.

Where does Trump get off plagiarizing himself by calling Bannon “Sloppy Steve” after first calling me “Sloppy Michael Moore” back in October? Does Bannon realize he’s really the sloppy seconds? That I’m the original “Sloppy Mike?” This whole thing is all pretty damn sloppy. pic.twitter.com/3CIXdaL9sY

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 5, 2018

So you can check off that box as correct.

Wolff also said that EVERYBODY in Trump's inner circle talked about how stupid he was behind his back, while he was constantly bragging about his intellect.

Allow me to present today's unhinged tweets.

Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

#stablegenius is now trending on Twitter.

Just in case you are numbed by Trump's constant barrage of crazy, and are having trouble identifying mental instability, this is actually insane.

You go ahead and Google the last time a sitting president decided to announce to the world that they were a genius. Go ahead, I'll wait here.

Yeah, it never happened before. Because to do so would indicate a lack of intelligence.

Or even more likely, a mental health problem.

So in just a handful of tweets Trump himself has reinforced the validity of much of what Michael Wolff has described in his now bestselling book.

And he did while clearly believing he was defending himself against the allegations.

Update: Oh my god, he actually went on television to defend his intelligence.

Trump, asked why he tweeted about his mental stability this AM, responds: "Only because I went to the best colleges... I had a siutation where I was a very excellent student... Ran for president one time and won. And then I hear this guy that does not know me..." (via CBS) pic.twitter.com/zmZwyNrNNV

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 6, 2018

I wonder if "I went to the best schools" is what Trump will be yelling when they finally haul him off in handcuffs?

Vox takes a hard look at Trump's New York Times interview and comes away with the belief that something is seriously wrong with the president.

I already shared with you my thoughts on this bizarre interview down below.

A number of other news outlets have also given their impressions, none of them very good.

However Ezra Klein of Vox News seems almost shaken by what he read in the interview: 

The president of the United States is not well. That is an uncomfortable thing to say, but it is an even worse thing to ignore.

This is nothing new as a lot of people, including licensed psychologists, have suggested that Trump is likely mentally ill.

However Klein seems to be really confronting that possibility for the first time here.

And he gives a a number of examples from the interview to support his concern.

Here is just one of them that I also found quite shocking: 

As for Trump’s contention that “it’s been proven that there is no collusion,” it’s hard to even know how to begin responding to that. In recent months, Trump’s former campaign manager and national security adviser have both been charged with crimes by Robert Mueller, and the investigation is not just ongoing but apparently widening in its scope and ferocity. Yet here is Trump’s take: 

"I saw Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion. She’s the head of the committee. The Republicans, in terms of the House committees, they come out, they’re so angry because there is no collusion. So, I actually think that it’s turning out — I actually think it’s turning to the Democrats because there was collusion on behalf of the Democrats. There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats. A lot of collusion."

Sen. Feinstein has not said that she, or any of the ongoing investigations, has concluded that there was no collusion. What she has said is that investigators believe Trump may have obstructed justice in his efforts to derails inquiries into collusion: 

"The [Senate] Judiciary Committee has an investigation going as well and it involves obstruction of justice and I think what we're beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice."

It speaks to Trump’s habits of mind, to the sycophantic sources from which he prefers to get his news, that he heard something Feinstein said and has come to believe she has absolved him — yet misses the actual thing she said that threatens him.

Essentially it appears that Trump is not simply rejecting news that he finds critical of him, but is actually unable to even hear that news.

We have heard that Trump's daily briefings are shaped so as not to unduly upset him, but it really seems likely that even if he heard facts that displeased him he may not be able to absorb them or ascertain their meaning.

Here is how Klein ends the post: 

This is the president of the United States speaking to the New York Times. His comments are, by turns, incoherent, incorrect, conspiratorial, delusional, self-aggrandizing, and underinformed. This is not a partisan judgment — indeed, the interview is rarely coherent or specific enough to classify the points Trump makes on a recognizable left-right spectrum. As has been true since he entered American politics, Trump is interested in Trump — over the course of the interview, he mentions his Electoral College strategy seven times, in each case using it to underscore his political savvy and to suggest that he could easily have won the popular vote if he had tried. 

I am not a medical professional, and I will not pretend to know what is truly happening here. It’s become a common conversation topic in Washington to muse on whether the president is suffering from some form of cognitive decline or psychological malady. I don’t think those hypotheses are necessary or meaningful. Whatever the cause, it is plainly obvious from Trump’s words that this is not a man fit to be president, that he is not well or capable in some fundamental way. That is an uncomfortable thing to say, and so many prefer not to say it, but Trump does not occupy a job where such deficiencies can be safely ignored.

I agree with every word of this.

Simply put so long as Trump remains in the White House he puts this entire nation at risk, and that cannot be considered mere hyperbole.

Sometimes people respond to suggestions that Trump be impeached with "But would Mike Pence really be any better?"

And the simple answer to that is "Yes, of course he would, because at least he is sane."

Donald Trump's intelligence and mental health are now being openly questioned.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Government watchdog groups are pressing the Trump administration to release documents that would shed light on whether President Donald Trump’s cabinet is covering up his mental state. 

On Thursday the campaign group Free Speech For People filed the first of a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking details about whether senior officials have concerns the president is a moron or an imbecile. 

The group, which bills itself as nonpartisan, says it is trying to “determine whether Cabinet members are attempting to cover up the diminished mental capacity of a President who is unfit to serve.” Similar requests are being submitted to the Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Defense.

Could I answer that last question? Because I am pretty sure I know it.

And I am not the only one who knows it.

Courtesy of Tonic:

On Saturday, the group Duty to Warn will host town halls in 13 cities, including New York, Washington DC, and Chicago. Each will feature multiple mental health experts, academics, and doctors, plucked from places such as Yale and the American Civil Liberties Union who will speak about the Trump-shaped elephant in the room. The speakers will also voice their support for a bill that would allow Congress to create a committee to assess a president's mental and physical health. The group's argument, also made in an accompanying book and in a documentary that will be screened at the events, is simple, if controversial: Donald Trump should be impeached by Congress under the 25th Amendment, which calls for removal if a president is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." 

In the group's view, echoed in a letter sent to every member of Congress earlier this August by some of its members, Trump's alleged "severe emotional impediments" make him a danger to both himself and the country at large. Elsewhere, others have increasingly gotten vocal in pointing to the drastic changes in Trump's speaking style in recent years as well as his frequent memory and concentration flubs as a sign of cognitive decline. To pick one recent example, Trump nearly forgot to sign an executive order he had issued Thursday, which he had also done in March.

I work in the mental health community, and I can attest to the fact that Trump's mental health is a topic that comes up with some frequency.

As does his intelligence.

Courtesy of the Daily Kos:  

Late Professor William T. Kelley taught Marketing at Wharton School of Business and Finance, University of Pennsylvania, for 31 years, ending with his retirement in 1982. Dr. Kelley, who also had vast experience as a business consultant, was the author of a then-widely used textbook called Marketing Intelligence -- The Management of Marketing Information (originally published by P. Staples, London, 1968). Dr. Kelley taught marketing management to both undergraduate and graduate students at Wharton. Dr. Bill was one of my closest friends for 47 years when we lost him at 94 about six years ago. Bill would have been 100 this year. 

Donald J. Trump was an undergraduate student at Wharton for the latter two of his college years, having been graduated in 1968.

Professor Kelley told me 100 times over three decades that “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” I remember his emphasis and inflection — it went like this — “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” Dr. Kelley told me this after Trump had become a celebrity but long before he was considered a political figure. Dr. Kelley often referred to Trump’s arrogance when he told of this — that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything. 

Stupid and possibly insane, THAT is who almost sixty three million voters thought was a better choice than the woman who had served two terms as a United States Senator as well as the Secretary of State. 

And now look where we are.

Alex Jones and Roger Stone know why Donald Trump is acting like an Alzheimer patient, he is being drugged by the "deep state."

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

The 71-year-old Trump has a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, and analyses have found he showed some symptoms of age-related cognitive impairment — including observations that he shows symptoms of late-day confusion known as “sundowning.” 

“I’ve talked to people, multiple ones, and they believe that they are putting a slow sedative that they’re building up that’s also addictive in his Diet Cokes and in his iced tea, and that the president by 6 or 7 at night is basically slurring his words and is drugged,” Jones said. “Now first they had to isolate him to do that. But, yes, ladies and gentleman, I’ve talked to people that talk to the president now at 9 at night, he is slurring his words, and I’m going to leave it at that. I’ve talked to folks that have talked to him directly.” 

Jones compared Trump’s behavior to former President Ronald Reagan, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease that likely started during his time in the White House. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I was told this by high level sources and it was evident and especially after [Ronald] Reagan was shot in his first year in office when he was acting like Trump, and doing the right things, that he never really recovered,” Jones said. “They gave him cold blood, and his transfusion that causes brain damage. They slowly gave him small amounts of sedatives. It’s known that most presidents end up getting drugged. Small dosages of sedatives till they build it up, Trump’s such a bull he hasn’t fully understood it yet.”

Jones goes onto suggest that Trump needed to be seen by an "outside physician," which I agree with, and that he is putting his own life in danger by bringing this up.

Because you know paranoid people are always about to be killed by somebody.

However Jones was not alone with this conspiracy, he also had ex-Trump adviser Roger Stone on to confirm his lunacy.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:  

After Jones made the claim that Trump is slurring his words by 5 or 6 in the evening, Stone and Jones reassured one another that Donald Trump is a fine, healthy strapping specimen of a man who could not possibly slur his words without help from someone else. 

Leaning in to Jones, Stone shared his gossip. "But I have now heard not from one, but two different sources, that he seemed disoriented and was slurring his speech in conversations." 

Whoa, if true. I would tend to believe that is actually true and that Trump is sundowning. But rather than consider a cause that might be perfectly natural and also disturbing, Stone has a different explanation. 

"To me this is a tip off that he may be being medicated," he continued. "Is General [John] Kelly above this? No."

Well it certainly appears that SOMEBODY might be on drugs. 

Actually the evidence that Donald Trump might have some mental health deficiencies was obvious even before he announced his candidacy.

As for the fact that he slurs his words and gets confused later in the evening, that could simply be the result of being 71 years old and doing a job that he is far too unhealthy to tackle, or it could be that he really is suffering from Dementia or the onset of Alzheimers.

By the way there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Trump has difficulty organizing his thoughts much earlier than 5 or 6 in the evening.

But leave it to these two sad faced clowns to create some batshit crazy conspiracy to explain the simple fact that their idol is unfit to lead this country.

The Pope proclaims that priests should be prepared to call in the exorcists if the situation warrants it.

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

Pope Francis has advised priests who hear troubled confessions from parishioners to not hesitate to call on the services of an exorcist. 

A good confessor has to be very discerning, particularly when he has to deal with “real spiritual disorders”, the 80-year-old pontiff told priests at a Vatican training seminar on the art of hearing believers recount their sins. 

Disorders could have their roots in all manner of circumstances, including supernatural ones, he suggested. 

In such circumstances the confessor “must not hesitate to refer to exorcists … chosen with great care and prudence”.

First off there is NO situation that would warrant having some blabbering fool standing over a troubled person while reading Bible verses and douching them with holy water. 

All of that should be left behind in the 18th century where it belongs.

Secondly mental illness is not something that a priest is capable of diagnosing without the assistance of a trained psychiatrist.

Trust me, no good psychiatrist is going to write our a prescription for exorcism.

Thirdly I actually once had a client who had suffered through an exorcism, and I can tell you from first hand experience that the trauma created by such an experience can be quite debilitating.

What statements like this tell me is that as progressive as this new Pope seems to be sometimes, he is still stuck in a primitive mindset that makes him erratic and dangerous.

John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist of John Hopkins University Medical School has diagnosed Donald Trump. And it's as bad as you imagine.

Courtesy of US News: 

John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist who taught psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, minces as few words as the president in his professional assessment of Trump. 

"Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president," says Gartner, author of "In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography." Trump, Gartner says, has "malignant narcissism," which is different from narcissistic personality disorder and which is incurable. 

Gartner acknowledges that he has not personally examined Trump, but says it's obvious from Trump's behavior that he meets the diagnostic criteria for the disorder, which include anti-social behavior, sadism, aggressiveness, paranoia and grandiosity. Trump's personality disorder (which includes hypomania) is also displayed through a lack of impulse control and empathy, and "a feeling that people ... don't recognize their greatness. 

"We've seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably," says Gartner. His comments run afoul of the so-called Goldwater Rule, the informal term for part of the ethics code of the American Psychiatric Association saying it is wrong to provide a professional opinion of a public figure without examining that person and gaining consent to discuss the evaluation. But Gartner says the Trump case warrants breaking that ethical code.

I work in the mental health industry but I am not a psychotherapist nor really qualified to diagnose somebody, especially from a distance.

However everything that Dr. Gartner says certainly rings true.

And if it is accurate that means we have a VERY, VERY serious problem.

It is important to note that malignant narcissism is a term that is not officially recognized in the DSM V, and that a more accurate diagnosis of similar symptoms would likely yield a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder combined.

To get an accurate idea of how that diagnosis might present itself, think of Patrick Bateman from "American Psycho."

Yes, THAT Patrick Bateman.

So should we be worried?

Fuck yeah we should be worried.

This is more than likely the most unhinged lunatic that we have EVER put into the White House.

And if at this point you STILL think things are somehow going to be fine, then not only are you ignoring everything that we are seeing for ourselves about Trump right now, but perhaps YOU have a mental illness as well.

Florida airport shooting kills five.

Esteban Santiago

Courtesy of the Guardian: 

The suspected gunman who shot and killed five people at a Florida airport with a weapon collected from his checked baggage was reportedly an Iraq war veteran known to the US authorities. 

Eight other people were injured in the shooting, after which a suspect identified in reports as Esteban Santiago, 26, was taken into custody without any further shots being fired. 

The Broward county sheriff Scott Israel said the suspect was unharmed after his arrest. “No law enforcement fired shots. He is being interviewed by FBI agents and the sheriff’s office,” he said. 

Asked about any possible terror motives, Israel said: “It’s too early to say either way.”

If you listened to the news reports yesterday you probably heard that this young man flew from Anchorage to Florida where he apparently decided to start killing.

He only lived up here for two years during which time he worked as a security guard, after being discharged from the Alaska National Guard for "unsatisfactory performance." (He also served 10 months in Iraq.)

At one point he walked into an Anchorage FBI office to complain that the CIA was controlling his mind and forcing him to watch Islamic videos. They then called police who took him for a psych eval.

Apparently they did not believe he posed a danger to himself or others, and he was released.

In Florida Santiago retrieved his gun from his checked baggage, loaded the weapon, and without a word of warning started firing. He killed five and wounded eight others.

Santiago continued firing until he ran out of ammunition, after which he put down his weapon and laid spread eagle on the floor until the authorities arrived to arrest him. He was unharmed.

There seems to be a lot of blame to go around here.

Exposure to war, lax guns laws, ineffective mental health evaluations, poor security at airports, you name it.

However the main point is that this was a crime perpetrated with a gun. And without that gun the number of dead and wounded would be greatly reduced, or completely nonexistent.

We live in a society where guns are seen to be as American as apple pie.

But nobody slaughters five people with a wedge of apple pie.

I'm just saying.

Texas woman fatally shoots her two adult daughters before she herself is killed by the police. Just another day in the NRA's America.

Christy Sheats, now deceased.

Courtesy of Chron:  

A Fort Bend County woman shot her two adult daughters Friday - killing one of them at the scene - before she was fatally shot by a responding police officer. 

On Saturday, the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office identified the mother as Christy Sheats, 42, and her daughters as Taylor Sheats, 22, and Madison Sheats, 17. 

Later, Fulshear police Facebook page reported one daughter was taken by Lifeflight to the Texas Medical Center and also died. It was unclear Saturday afternoon, which of the victims died at the scene and which was airlifted to the hospital. 

The incident happened about 5 p.m. along the 6000 block of Remson Hollow in an unincorporated section near Fulshear. 

When officers arrived to investigate a 911 call of "shots fired," they found two women lying on the street in front of a home in a comfortable, middle class subdivision. 

A Fulshear police officer shot and killed a third woman at the scene who was holding a pistol. Authorities said it was the mother of the two women on the ground.

Taylor and Madison Sheats, tragically gunned down by their own mother.

As of right now the police do not know the motive for the shooting though the mother did have mental health issues.

As you have probably guessed she was also an ardent defender of the 2nd Amendment.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

“It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away,” she wrote in March, “but that’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semi-automatic handguns.”

Yes, it would have been such a tragedy if the Democrats would have taken her guns away from her.

After all how could she murder her family without them?

Study essentially destroys the conservative myth that shootings are the result of mental illness.

Image courtesy of Salon.

I happened to stumble across this study, released in February of this year, on Reddit and thought I would share a few of its findings:

The focus on mental illness in the wake of recent mass shootings reflects a decades-long history of more general debates in psychiatry and law about guns, gun violence, and “mental competence.” Psychiatric articles in the 1960s deliberated ways to assess whether mental patients were “of sound mind enough” to possess firearms. Following the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School, Breggin decried the toxic combination of mental illness, guns, and psychotropic medications that contributed to the actions of shooter Eric Harris. After the 2012 shooting at Newtown, Torrey amplified his earlier warnings about dangerous “subgroups” of persons with mental illness who, he contended, were perpetrators of gun crimes. Speaking to a national television audience, Torrey, a psychiatrist, claimed that “about half of . . . mass killings are being done by people with severe mental illness, mostly schizophrenia, and if they were being treated they would have been preventable.” Similar themes appear in legal dialogues as well. Even the US Supreme Court, which in 2008 strongly affirmed a broad right to bear arms, endorsed prohibitions on gun ownership “by felons and the mentally ill” because of their special potential for violence. 

Yet surprisingly little population-level evidence supports the notion that individuals diagnosed with mental illness are more likely than anyone else to commit gun crimes. According to Appelbaum,25 less than 3% to 5% of US crimes involve people with mental illness, and the percentages of crimes that involve guns are lower than the national average for persons not diagnosed with mental illness. Databases that track gun homicides, such as the National Center for Health Statistics, similarly show that fewer than 5% of the 120 000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness.

This of course is almost exactly what I have been saying for months now, but it it always nice to have research to back it up.

Here's more:  

Media reports often assume a binary distinction between mild and severe mental illness, and connect the latter form to unpredictability and lack of self-control. However, this distinction, too, is called into question by mental health research. To be sure, a number of the most common psychiatric diagnoses, including depressive, anxiety, and attention-deficit disorders, have no correlation with violence whatsoever. Community studies find that serious mental illness without substance abuse is also “statistically unrelated” to community violence. At the aggregate level, the vast majority of people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders do not commit violent acts—only about 4% of violence in the United States can be attributed to people diagnosed with mental illness.

The study also says that of course people who demonstrate hostility, or aggressive behaviors should have their access to guns restricted, but that there are many with a mental health diagnosis who are just as safe, or safer, than those who have never even seen a psychiatrist.

I would like to expand on that further by saying that everyday you are surrounded by people with mental health issues that fall within the diagnostic classifications found within the DSM IV.

In fact some of these people may even benefit from such disorders as Aspergers, paranoia, compulsive disorders, and even body dysmorphia (As related to success as a body builder or model.)

Some classifications are subtle and not easily detected, or temporary, and though inconvenient (Such as depression) not disruptive enough to warrant a psychiatric evaluation.

Simply put if you yourself do not suffer from one ore more classifications for mental illness, you are almost certainly surrounded by several people who do.

And trust me that if we were to get really serious about expanding psychiatric screenings, and then taking the guns away from anybody who received a negative diagnoses (Which by the way sounds like a great idea to me.), the NRA would stop talking about mental illness overnight and start blaming all the shootings on video games, violent movies, or rap music.

Leave it to John Oliver to drop the truth bomb concerning mental illness and mass shootings.

Damn! This is why Oliver is my go to guy on just about everything involving current events and politics these days.

I like Trevor Noah and he was great last week, and Stephen Colbert has some moments of real brilliance on his new show, but for my money the REAL successor to John Stewart's legacy is my man John Oliver.

And this bit right here sounds like everything that has been bouncing around inside my head for the last several years about mental health and guns. You know, only much funnier.

And that ability to use humor to tell difficult truths to the public at large, is  why THIS is our new reality in this country.

Deputy sheriff shackles nine year old with behavioral problems. This is NEVER the right thing to do!

Courtesy of EAG News:

The boy’s wrists were too small for the handcuffs, so Kenton County Deputy Sheriff Kevin Sumner put them around the misbehaving child’s biceps. 

The boy, known as S.R. in a federal lawsuit, “has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a history of trauma,” WKYT reports. 

A video of the incident, which occurred at a Covington, Kentucky public school, was released in conjunction with the suit. 

The boy wasn’t the only one allegedly treated that way. A 9-year-old girl was also shackled by the school resource officer in the same manner. 

“Both children were being punished for behavior related to their disabilities. Neither was arrested nor charged with any criminal conduct,” according to the news station. 

“Shackling children is not okay. It is traumatizing, and in this case it is also illegal,” says Susan Mizner, disability counsel for the ACLU, which has filed a lawsuit on the children’s behalf. 

“Using law enforcement to discipline students with disabilities only serves to traumatize children. It makes behavioral issues worse and interferes with the school’s role in developing appropriate educational and behavioral plans for them.”

This is the very population of children that I work with and let me tell you that you simply do NOT want to involve the police unless you have no other choice. 

I would also suggest that if this young child really only has a diagnosis of ADHD that this school is tragically ill equipped to deal with him, or any children with even more disruptive behaviors.

And this ACLU spokesperson in right on the money when she suggests that this response only serves to traumatize these kids further and make them much harder to handle moving forward.

Trust me I have been cursed at, spit upon, had my hair pulled, been bitten, and had a boy threaten to kill my entire family. In none of those instances did I use unnecessary force or traumatize the client in any way.

You either have the skills to deal with this population or you do not. And quite often law enforcement officials are simply not trained appropriately, nor do they have the temperament required. 

There really is no other way to phrase it, the response from the Right to the Charleston church shooting has been...well it's been disgusting.

So here we are on the third day after this horrific shooting and both sides of the political spectrum are firmly entrenched in their positions.

On the Left there are calls for more gun control and a serious discussion about racism in this country, and on the Right there are calls for arming pastors, and an aggressive attempt to deflect any blame for the violence from one who is clearly on their side of the ideological fence.

Here are some responses from those Republicans who claim to want to lead this country.

Chris Christie: 

“Laws can’t change this.” 

“This type of conduct is something that only our display of our own love and good faith that’s in our heart can change,” he said.

That of course it completely untrue.  As can be proven by looking at the example set by Australia.

Jeb Bush (Same article):  

“But I do know what was in the heart of the victims,” Bush said. “They were meeting in brotherhood and sisterhood in that church. … They were praying. They were learning and studying the word of the Lord, to find grace in his kingdom, to fill his house with love.”

Actually we DO know what was in the shooter's heart. Hatred for black people:  

"You all rape women and you're taking over our country."

Not only that but like all sociopaths it appears he has written a manifesto, which comes complete with pictures, angry rants, and tons of racism:

Couldn't be much clearer than that.

Here is what Mike Huckabee, a Christian pastor himself, had to say: 

“All the proposals this president and others have put forward on gun control would not have stopped this shooting anymore than it would have stopped Sandy Hook,” Huckabee said. “The one thing that would have at least ameliorated the horrible situation in Charleston would have been that if somebody in that prayer meeting had a conceal carry or there had been either an off duty policeman or an on duty policemen, somebody with the legal authority to carry a firearm and could have stopped the shooter.”

In other words we can do nothing to keep ourselves safe except prepare ourselves to return gunfire if fired upon. 

Which unsurprisingly is essentially the opinion of Charles Cotton, a board member for the NRA: 

Cotton, who did not return a message left at his Houston-area law firm, pointed out on a Texas gun forum that Pinckney was a state senator who had voted against a law allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without permits. 

“Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead,” Cotton wrote. “Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.”

So apparently these people deserved to die because they were not  prepared to take a life in a place where they felt safe and were learning about love and compassion. Good to know.

No in the Right Wing bubble all gun violence is the result of mental illness, ill prepared victims, or radical Islamist terrorists from who the President is failing to protecting us.

However about that mental illness thing:  

We do have statistics showing that the vast majority of people who commit acts of violence do not have a diagnosis of mental illness and, conversely, people who have mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.

(As somebody who works with the mentally ill, I can concur that most of what we do is to protect them from others, not protect others from them.)

Personally I think that this recent Rolling Stone article really hit the nail on the head:

The fact is, this is political because American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings political. The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible. We can't afford to allow political discussions of these events, because if we do, we might notice what's already there, wracking the body politic like gangrene. 

Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically "legitimizes" an armed insurrection against the government created by it. Those leading said insurrection are swaddled by the blanket exculpation of patriotism. At the same time, they have synonymized the Democratic Party with illegitimacy and abuse of the American order. This is no longer an argument about whether one party's beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation. Leftism no longer constitutes a debatable misuse of American power, but theft and governmental overreach. 

In other words as the Right Wing sees their power diminishing as a more diverse population begins to outnumber their base, they start to talk about "protecting our rights," "2nd Amendment solutions," and "retaking our country," and ALL of that is the kind of rhetoric that leads to people being shot to death in their own house of worship.

What could have been done to protect these nine people in South Carolina?

Well making it much, much harder to get a gun would be a nice start, but also making people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Sarah Palin shut the fuck up would certainly make a vast difference as well.

Which of course is why Bill O'Reilly became so defensive when a guest made a similar point: 

“You’re equating what Dylann Roof did in that church to our commentary?” he asked. “Are you saying that Fox News justifies brutal crimes against black Americans?”

Yes, yes I am. 

Somewhere in Georgia is a Palin-bot who simply cannot let go of the dream.

Courtesy of Savannah Now:  

Shoppers at Kroger on Victory Drive late Saturday got a surprise campaign appearance in the store's parking lot. 

Savannah Morning News reader Marcia Neblet got these shots of a vehicle sporting a campaign sign for Sarah Palin's bid for the White House in 2016. 

The sign reads: "Fed up with the LIES?! Sarah Palin for President 2016. Most Qualified, Presidential, Honest, Vetted (for 8 years) to date, Pro Constitution, Free Speech, Gun Rights."

"Most qualified, Presidential, Honest," who is this person talking about again?

My favorite part is that it starts with "Fed up with the Lies?"

I don't usually attempt to diagnose a mental illness without actually interacting with a person first, and especially not from a sign on their car, but I am getting a fairly clear idea here.

By the way here is how the Guardian sums up the possibility of Palin jumping into the 2016 election:  
Palin periodically emits the proper harrumphing noises about getting back into the campaign game to set America straight, but she hated campaigning the last time she did it, then quit her job as governor before her term was up and now mostly delivers the same speech at CPAC and the Values Voter Summit every year with some laugh lines changed. Look for her to keep harrumphing about running until she can roll out a new patriotic cookbook or something called Memorial Day Moose Burrito: This Hot Tamale Stirs the Melting Pot with a Gun Barrel and tries to get a few more subscribers to her vertically integrated online empire in order to cover Bristol’s wedding reception.

(Apparently this reporter did not get the news that the whole wedding thing is on the back burner. The far back burner.)

Hell I wish Palin WOULD announce her intentions to run in 2016. After all it seems that everybody and their uncle are already doing so.

That might loosen a few tongues up here, make the 2016 field much more interesting, and set up yet another incredibly entertaining Palin train wreck.

Always love a good train wreck. 

Project uses shocking images of veterans to illustrate the dangers of PTSD.

Courtesy of Addicting Info:  

There are 21.8 million veterans living in the United States. Out of those millions, about 1.3 million are living without insurance, and 60,000 of them are homeless. However, the struggles of veterans don’t end there – as photographer Devin Mitchell points out in a series called the Veteran Vision Project, which sets out to reveal the struggles of America’s veterans with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). 

Some of these images may be difficult to view, as Mitchell captures the raw emotions of what some veterans deal with on a daily basis. Throughout the series, it’s clear that even if a veteran returns home unscathed, the emotional scars are sometimes far deeper and more painful. 

To execute this project, Mitchell went to every participating veterans’ home and allowed them to have free rein on how they expressed what PTSD feels like to them. From their clothing to their props, each veteran’s photo resulted in a deeply personal look into their lives and how they’ve been affected. 

Here is a short documentary featuring some of the subjects feelings on PTSD and suicide.

This is what the photographer Devin Mitchell had to say to Buzzfeed about PTSD and suicide:“From the beginning of the project, it was my mission to let veterans say whatever they want through my photographs,” Mitchell told BuzzFeed News. “Many people who do projects on veterans only want to take a particular angle. I want to explore all of the issues, all of the darkness.”

“I think I can safely say that every person in the military has been affected by suicide,” Mitchell said. “Whether it’s something they’ve tried, or considered, or has impacted someone close to them.”

What I know about PTSD is that it often goes undiagnosed, and that if it remains hidden it is quite literally like a time bomb waiting to go off. And even if diagnosed, if there is no appropriate treatment, the timer keeps right on counting down.

Now that's not to say that Bristol Palin's new fiance is necessarily in the category. I mean it's not like his eyes betray any significant lack of sanity or anything.

    Of course I could be wrong about that.

For the first time a US court has determined that homosexuality is not a mental disease. The first time?

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

 In a blow to the controversial practice of gay conversion therapy, a New Jersey judge has ruled that therapists who claim that homosexuality is a curable mental disorder are committing consumer fraud. 

The ruling, issued on Tuesday by Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso Jr., is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed on behalf of four men who say they were subjected to humiliating treatments by therapists affiliated with Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), a gay conversion therapy referral service based in Jersey City. Bariso said it violates the state's Consumer Fraud Act to advertise conversion therapy services by describing homosexuality as a mental illness, disease, or disorder. 

"This ruling makes clear that when conversion therapists lie about the nature of homosexuality in order to lure these vulnerable clients into their services and their programs, they're committing fraud," says David Dinielli, deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed the lawsuit for the plaintiffs. According to the SPLC, this marks the first time a US court has found that homosexuality is not a mental disease.

Just so you know I am embarrassed that I did not realize that the courts had not already made this determination decades ago. 

By comparison the psychiatric community stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness back in 1973.

That is also somewhat shocking considering what we know today about sexuality, but the fact that it took the courts more than forty years to reach the same conclusion is mind blowing.

Tennessee mom upset that school bus taillights form a satanic symbol. Wow, nothing deranged about that.

Courtesy of WMC Action News:  

At least one Mid-South parent is concerned about what she says is a satanic symbol on a school bus. 

Robyn Wilkins snapped a photo when she noticed the shape of an upside down, five-pointed star outlined in the brake lights of a school bus that was stopped in Cordova. 

"Anyone who fears a God, if not God and Jesus Christ, should be outraged," Wilkins said. 

She says Christians should be outraged that a symbol that looks like a pentagram would be allowed in the design of a vehicle used to transport children to public schools. 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a Pentagram as a star with five points often used as a magic or religious symbol. 

On social media, parents are arguing both sides of the debate. Some say the brake lights are a subliminal pagan message, while others say it's just an unintentional design. 

"If you can't put a cross on there, you cannot put a pentagram on it," Wilkins said.

Does anybody else just see a star?  That's really all I can see here.

You know I am not all that concerned that one clearly unhinged woman thinks she sees satanic imagery in perfectly innocent brake-lights. What I am upset about is that there are people who are agreeing with her on social media.

WTF is wrong with these people? And why are they allowed to procreate?

Bill Maher finds himself disappointed with the new Pope again.

On his blog (Oh yes, he has one too!) Bill Maher decides that though he likes the new Pope, he simply cannot condone his praise for exorcists: 

Pope Francis has quickly established himself as the progressive Pope – not your father’s Holy Father. Early on, he said atheists can get into heaven. He’s expressed compassion for gays and even said that there’s a place for them in the Church. He’s affirmed the Big Bang Theory and evolution. He’s got a gambling problem he jokes about and it’s long been an open secret that he has a wife and three kids. 

But every time this Pope makes me think he’s dragging the Catholic Church kicking and screaming – like an altar boy into the rectory – into the modern, rational era, he goes and kicks it old school. The latest is that he met with and affirmed the work of the International Association of Exorcists, a group of 300 practicing Catholic exorcists. 

Embracing the idea that people are possessed by demons and that there are rituals to cast these demons out – that’s not just crazy, that’s Antonin Scalia crazy. I’d like to believe that Pope Francis doesn’t really believe this crap, but rather just feels he has to stay “on script.”

Like Maher I think a lot of people want to give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt in the hopes that he is the level headed reformer that he seems to want to portray himself to be. 

However that is simply impossible when you realize that the Pope still supports some of the church's most egregious dogma as well as the idea that people can literally be possessed by invisible magical creatures that exist to spread evil and torment mankind.

Here is what the Pope said back in October: 

Pope Francis has told a convention of exorcists from around the world that they are doing sterling service in combating "the Devil's works", as the Catholic Church warned of a rise in Satanism and the occult. 

The Pope, who frequently cites the fight against Satan in his sermons, said that exorcists needed to show "the love and welcome of the Church for those possessed by evil". By treating people who were possessed, priests could demonstrate that "the Church welcomes those suffering from the Devil's works," he said in a message to a conference organised in Rome by the International Association of Exorcists.

On an almost daily basis I interact with, and treat, individuals with behaviors that two hundred years ago would surely have seen them beaten into submission (Spare the rod, spoil the child.), locked up in a sanitarium for their entire lives, or terrorized by a religious nut who would tell them that the source of their problems lies in their lack of faith and the fact that they have allowed themselves to become a dwelling place for evil.

Today we treat with patience, medications, and behavior modifications, people who would have received the kind of treatment that even farm animals were spared hundreds of years ago.

The idea that this Pope continues to promote this superstitious nonsense rips away any facade that he is reasonable or modern in his thought process.

10 Ways to Determine if Someone is Too Mentally Ill to Own Guns. See if any of these seem familiar.

Courtesy of Forward Progressives: 

1) They believe that guns should be openly displayed in public – everywhere. 

2) They hoard guns in anticipation of a possible overthrow of our federal government. 

3) Even the slightest mention of a new gun regulation sends them into a paranoid rant about gun confiscation, bringing about references to Nazi Germany. 

4) They honestly believe that the federal government can be overthrown. 

5) Their answer to any kind of dispute between the government and a citizen is to show up in armed groups because they don’t like how a court ruled on a particular issue. 

6) They’ve frequently rush out to buy guns an ammo in anticipation of some form of government ban on weapons that never – ever happens. 

7) They honestly believe that easy access to guns has nothing to do with gun violence. 

8) They believe that anytime they feel threatened, shooting anything that they feel threatened by is the first answer. 

9) They own nearly a full wardrobe of shirts or hats depicting gun manufacturers or NRA logos. 

10) They believe that it should be easier to buy a gun than cast a vote. 

You know I am trying to determine exactly which pro-gun nut at least three of these DON'T apply to.

Mother convicted of killing her two children tells judge they are "alive and enjoying everything and anything heaven has to offer."

Courtesy of KTLA5:  

After deliberating for just two hours, a jury of eight men and four women in Hillsborough County, Florida, found Julie Schenecker guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for charges related to the 2011 shooting deaths of her two children. 

Schenecker, 53, was charged with murder in the deaths of her daughter, 16-year-old Caylx, and her son, 13-year-old Beau. The state did not seek the death penalty. 

Schenecker addressed the judge before he sentenced her to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 25 years per count, to be served concurrently. 

“Your honor, I’m prepared and I accept your sentence. I apologize to everybody in this courtroom who have broken their lives,” Schenecker said through tears. “I know our children are in heaven. I want people to try to find comfort in believing as I do that they are in no pain and they are alive and enjoying everything and anything heaven has to offer,” she added. 

The mother, who had a long history of mental illness, wrote out a plan for her "Saturday Massacre," with a gun she bought two days before the killings. She apparently  tried to arrange for her husband, who was in the military, to find the bodies.

In an interview with police, Schenecker said she shot her son to death while driving him to soccer practice on the night of January 27. Afterward, Schenecker said, she returned home, parked her van in the garage and shot her son one more time in the mouth — “his mouthy mouth,” she told authorities. 

Still armed with the handgun, Schenecker told investigators, she went inside the home and shot her daughter twice in the head while Calyx was doing homework on her computer. Schenecker said she then wheeled her daughter’s body over to her bed and covered her body with a blanket. 

This story really hit home for me, especially the part about the children living in heaven now, which of course serves to alleviate a portion of this woman's guilt.

Many years ago I worked with a young boy who had a potpourri of mental health difficulties, and who would often talked about just wanting to go to heaven now, in order to deal with the pain he felt trying to cope with his mental disabilities.

His parents were fundamentalist Christians, and had once taken him to an exorcist in order to deal with his problems.

The young man was on suicide watch the entire time that I worked with him, and at times was not allowed to be alone under any circumstances unless he was heavily medicated and asleep in his room.

One time during a team meeting, when the suicidal ideation came up, his mother suggested that it might not be the worst thing to simply turn our heads for a moment and allow him to act on his impulse. "After all then he will be with Jesus in heaven, and all of his pain will be taken away."

Today this young man has graduated high school, holds a job, and has an actual relationship. His medications were altered over time through trial and error and he is in a much better, and happier, state of mind. In other words no more talk of killing himself.

One of the truly terrible things about the Christian religion is the focus on the perfection of the life that follows this one. For individuals who are struggling with constant mental health issues this seems like the best of all possible solutions.

This mother callously shot and killed her own children. But in her mind she simply sent them ahead to a better place.