Saturday, December 31, 2016

Carrie Fisher: Bipolar Drugs and Heart Disease

madinamerica

Carrie Fisher recently died of a heart attack at age 60. There's an important question here. Is she one of the cases in point to explain why our community has a 25 year lower life expectancy? How likely was it that her heart attack was caused by her psych meds? Or that her psych meds increased her risk of death once the heart attack happened? Well, the answer is, she had at least a 5 times greater risk of death during myocardial infarction than the general population.

Data from the European Heart Journal shows this:


So, we can look more carefully at her risk factors, and how this data affects anyone else on psych meds. Start with the NASMPD morbidity and mortality report. This is the famous report that explained that people with "severe" mental health labels die 25 years younger. Have you ever actually read that report? You should. It's 87 pages of really solid data. A lot of it is actually good news that shows that very small lifestyle changes make a big reduction in risk. Like if you are 80 pounds overweight, just losing 10 pounds cuts your risk in half. The changes don't have to be huge, which is very encouraging. Just 10 minutes a day of very moderate physical activity cuts your risk in half.
 
This "good news," is important for people with mental health labels, but we also have to be honest about the risk of psych meds, too. We have spawned a whole generation of Wellness Campaigns like SAMHSA's 10X10 campaign which was supposed to increase our community's life expectancy by 10 years within 10 years. But they ignored the psych med problem, which is the huge elephant in the room.

Even the original NASMHPD report gives a nod to the fact that psych meds might increase the risk of death. On page 6, it says

However, with time and experience the second generation antipsychotic medications have become more highly associated with weight gain, diabetes, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome and the superiority of clinical response (except for clozapine) has been questioned. Other psychotropic medications that are associated with weight gain may also be of concern.

For those not used to reading Administrator Nice Nice talk, this is what the quote says:

  1. New antipsychotics cause weight gain, diabetes, and a bunch of other risk factors associated with heart disease.
  2. The new antipsychotics don't even work better than the old ones; any difference claimed has basically been marketing BS.
  3. Some of these drugs cause huge weight gains, the NASMHPD report shows up to 70 pounds in a year that comes off as soon as people stop taking the drugs:


So the data shows that psych drugs increase 4 of the top 5 normal risk factors for cardiac disease: Weight gain, diabetes, high cholesterol, and even smoking (because it helps to relieve some of the numbness caused by the meds). But even more compelling is a study showing that in addition to all the the traditional risk factors caused by the drugs, taking the drug itself is a risk factor.

This is a very clear research study published in The European Heart Journal that took a large pool of people who had cardiac incidents and looked to see if they lived or died, and what drugs they were on at the time. This study confirms that combining antidepressants and old school antipsychotics causes an 18-fold increase in death during a cardiac event. Combining antidepressants with any antipsychotic causes an over 5-fold increase in relative risk of death during a cardiac incident.

We can compare the traditional five risk factors with the additional drug-induced risk factors by merging the NASMHPD data with the European Heart Journal data, shown below:



To put this in perspective, Vioxx was pulled from the market for a 2 fold increase in relative risk factor of strokes and heart attacks, and it may have killed 50,000 to 80,000 people during its stay on the market. How many heart attacks are being caused by psych drug combos? Well, let's crunch the numbers using some back-of-the-envelope calculations or rounding estimates.

According to Medico, 17% of U.S. adults are now on psych drugs (26% of U.S. women!), nearly 10% of U.S. children.  To make rounding easier, let's say this is 20% of the US population, and 1/3 of them take multi-drug combos. We start by factoring in the standard risk factors caused by the medication use, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, and high BMI. Each single risk factors roughly doubles the risk of heart attack, and combining them is worse.

  • 1 risk factor = double the risk
  • 2 risk factors = 4 times the risk
  • 3 risk factors = 6 times the risk
  • 4 risk factors = 10 times the risk
So, let's assume for the sake of calculation that of the 7% of the US population taking psych drugs combos, they have two risk factors each, and one is caused by life sitatuions, and the other is caused by psych drugs. According to the American Heart Association, The incidence of OHCA per 10,000 adults is 10.1 among blacks, 6.5 among Hispanics and 5.8 among whites. Since blacks are 12% of US population, Hispanics are 16% of US population, and whites are 65% of US population, Aggregate cardiac risk is:

(.12 X 10.1) + (.16 X 6.5) + (.65 X 5.8) per 10,000 = 6.022 per 10,000

So if 20% of the US population taking psych drugs X 2 fold increase in risk caused drugs X 308 million population X 6.022 heart attacks per 10,000 =

74,191 extra heart attacks per year

But wait, there's more; there's not just extra heart attacks, there's extra death during the heart attacks. We are looking at 5-fold and 18-fold increases in death during cardiac events here. Now, the American Heart Association reports about 326,200 people experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) in the U.S. in 2011. From that site, Based on the Resusciation Outcomes Consortium data, Survival after bystander-witnessed cases with a first recorded rhythm of VF was 53.3%. But these numbers are 5-18 times lower for people on psych drug combos. So let's say 10% survival rates, or 90% deaths for those on med combos.

From the first calculation, 74,191 heart attacks X 90% death rates X 50% of people on med combos =

33,386 extra deaths per year

Like all good back-of-the-envelope calculations, we can verify this number with a different data set, For instance the NASMHPD report (p. 13) lists a Massachusetts study that shows that people with "severe" mental health diagnoses had a 6.6-fold higher mortality rate from cardiovascular disease than the general population. The percent of people with "severe" mental health diagnoses is roughly 2-5% depending on which evaluation you use.

So, again,
308 million US population X 2% "severe" mental illness X 6.6 fold higher or excess mortality X 6.02 per 10,000 normal death rate = 24,474 extra deaths per year (by a different data set)
Either way, we are talking about a lot of people dying from their psych meds. And Carrie Fisher could well have been one of them.

The European Journal research article talks in depth about why this risk is so much higher. It talks about how the drugs themselves cause arrythmias. They mention that people taking benzos, which do not cause arrhythmia, did not show an elevated risk of death. They mention that people taking psych meds are much more likely to have heart attacks at night rather than during the day when fewer people are watching with defibrillators handy. Or, in the case of Carrie Fisher, who had a cardiac incident on an airplane, with delayed access to help.

The study even discusses that it was probably the drugs, and not the "mental illness," that causes the increase in death rates:

The use of cardiovascular drugs, such as aspirin, beta-blocking medication, and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, was less common among the victims of SCD. However, the difference in the use of psychotropic medication, which was  The main focus of the present study, remained significant after adjusting for the use of other medications and other confounding variables.
Previous studies have shown that mental Disorders increase the risk of cardiovascular mortality, 3 – 7 but it has not been clearly established if  Psychiatric disorders, such as depression or schizophrenia, predispose to the occurrence of cardiovascular events or whether they modify The outcome during such events. The present results support the latter proposal, Since it was found that the subjects using psychotropic drugs had a higher risk of dying during an acute coronary event, with fatal arrhythmia being the most probable cause of SCD during the ischaemic event. This concept is also supported by studies showing that depression increases specifically the occurrence of SCD but not non-fatal cardiac events.
There are other important lessons to take from this data:

  1. Smoking carries only a two-fold increase in cardiac risk, whereas any of the drug categories carries a two- to eight-fold increase. In other words, smoking is four times safer than the older types of antipsychotics. And it's twice as safe to smoke as it is to take any antipsychotic, including the newer ones.
  2. None of the traditional risk factors (1.5 to 2.5) is as high as the risk factor of taking any kind antipsyhotic (4.5)
  3. Combining antipsychotics and antidepressants is more dangerous than smoking plus diabetes plus having a high BMI and high cholesterol. In other words, the medications Carrie Fisher talked freely about taking, could have given her almost double the cardiac risk than all the traditional risk factors for cardiac disease. Combined.
  4. In general, psych med use (which no one has been willing to address as a risk factor) is much more dangerous than the traditional lifestyle based factors. Yet which one has the mental health system been willing to address?
We need to address this data much more carefully if we want to stop cardiac deaths among people with mental health labels. You can't just run "blame the victim" wellness campaigns that look at lifestyle stuff. If you want to really address life expectancy discrepancies, and untimely deaths, you need to look at reducing psych drug use.



Previous article“Stop The 21st Century Cures Act”


Thank You Ms West and MIA. 


Carrie Fisher was a psychiatric two for one, as the shock of losing her was too much for Debbie Fisher to bear.

GOP Rep. Slams Obama, Says Russian Sanctions Meant To Deligitimize Trump's Election

Townhall Leah Barkoukis |
Posted: Dec 30, 2016 3:45 PM



Rep. Trent Franks slammed President Obama on Friday for imposing sanctions on Russia for political reasons, arguing that Obama’s “primary motivation is to delegitimize the election" of Donald Trump.

In an interview with MSNBC, Franks noted that Obama failed to act when it came to other Russian transgressions, such as standing behind Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s bombings of civilians in the country.

"Now he suddenly finds his tongue when he sees an opportunity to try to use Russia to, quote, 'delegitimize' the election of Donald Trump to be the president. I find that stunning," Franks said.

"I am completely convinced that Barack Obama's primary motivation here is to try to delegitimize the election here."

Franks is not against the sanctions, he simply believes they’ve come too late “and at the motivation that is completely hidden to the public.”

Franks's complaints echo those from Trump's camp. Transition officials have blasted the Obama administration's focus on the Russian hacks into Democratic organizations as an attack on the legitimacy of Trump's win.

While hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta may have had an impact on the election, there's no evidence to suggest that Russian hackers breached the vote tabulating process itself.

Franks also blasted the media for its characterization of his comments Thursday, when he said, "If Russia succeeded in giving the American people information that was accurate, then they merely did what the media should have done."

On Friday, Franks bristled at the suggestion that he was condoning hacks into American systems by foreign actors.

"Those comments were completely misconstrued," he said.

Franks, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said "no one has been harder on Russia than [him].”

“I have been deeply committed to making sure their expansionism and their efforts did not result in the deaths of innocent people across the world."



Thank You Ms Barkoukis, Townhall, and Rep. Franks 



"I find that stunning," Franks said. 

Franks HAD to say.  

Coming from Obama it's agonizingly obvious, but as a member of Congress Rep Franks Has to be stunned. It's part of the job.

US 18C63 sec 1369 Attempt and Conspiracy

More of that law stuff. You know, Use of Interstate Commerce Facilities in the commission of Murder For Hire.

cornell law

Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense under this chapter shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy.


(Added Pub. L. 107–204, title IX, § 902(a), July 30, 2002, 116 Stat. 805.)

 Thank You Cornell Law

Nine Things The GOP Congress Must Do

Since Mr Jeffrey has a thing for looking up Numbers which actually mean something, . . . 

#7 Make Better Trade Deals.

TPP. isn't, despite what you may have heard, Free Trade.

Renegotiating our trade practices with China and Japan can't 'Start a Trade War' because we're already In a Trade War, and getting beaten to a pulp by these 2 countries.


China: US Govt Trade Representative 

Japan: US Govt Trade Representative 

Fascinating reading. Real eye openers.


That was production of the I Phone 5c.



Think long and hard about what you're actually buying.


CNSNews

By Terence P. Jeffrey | December 28, 2016 | 9:31 AM EST

But for that to happen, two things must occur: He must follow through on key campaign commitments, and the Republican Congress must act on them.

Here are nine commitments Trump made that the incoming Congress should make happen:

1. Completely repeal Obamacare.

Trump's position paper on health care said: "Our elected representatives in the House and Senate must: Completely repeal Obamacare. Our elected representatives must eliminate the individual mandate. No person should be required to buy insurance unless he or she wants to."

It further stated that reforms put in place after the repeal should "follow free market principles that will restore economic freedom and certainty to everyone in this country."

Congress must immediately repeal Obamacare — and enact only reforms that "follow free market principles."

2. Confirm pro-life constitutionalists to the Supreme Court.

"The freedoms we cherish and the constitutional values and principles our country was founded on are in jeopardy," Trump stated in September. "The responsibility is greater than ever to protect and uphold these freedoms and I will appoint justices, who, like Justice Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution."

In a letter to pro-life leaders, Trump added: "I am committed to ... (n)ominating pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court."

The Senate should confirm only nominees who fit the model Trump advocated.

3. Build the wall and enforce the immigration laws.

In his immigration plan, Trump promised to: "Begin working on an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border, on Day One."

"All immigration laws will be enforced — we will triple the number of ICE agents," said the plan. "Anyone who enters the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation."

Trump's plan also would "turn off the jobs and benefits magnet" for illegal immigrants. "Many immigrants come to the U.S. illegally in search of jobs," it said, "even though federal law prohibits the employment of illegal immigrants."

Congress should enact all legislation needed to build Trump's wall and fully enforce the immigration laws.

4) Pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

"I am committed to ... (s)igning into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide," Trump said in his letter to pro-life leaders.

Congress should place that bill on Trump's desk by Jan. 27, the day of the 2017 March for Life.

5) Defund Planned Parenthood.

"I am committed to ... (d)efunding Planned Parenthood as long as they continue to perform abortions," Trump said in his letter. Congress should defund Planned Parenthood in the first spending bill it sends Trump.

6) Cut income tax rates and end the "death tax."

"The Trump Plan will collapse the current seven tax brackets to three brackets," says Trump's tax plan. It would cut the top rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent.

Additionally, Trump's plan would "repeal the death tax," which can be a confiscatory tax on family owned businesses. It also drops the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.

A great Congress would go further than Trump's plan. It would enact the "Fair Tax Act" that would eliminate the income tax, replace it with a sales tax and set the stage for repeal of the 16th Amendment, which made direct federal taxation of individual incomes plausible.

But enacting Trump's plan to cut tax rates and abolish the death tax is a good start to reining in federal tax collections.

7) Make better trade deals.

In 2015, the U.S. had a merchandise trade deficit of $745.66 billion, according to the Census Bureau. Since 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation has lost more than 7 million manufacturing jobs.

Trump's trade plan calls for negotiating "fair trade deals that create American jobs, increase American wages, and reduce America's trade deficit." That includes withdrawing from the not-yet-approved Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiating NAFTA.

The Senate should ratify better trade deals when they are negotiated.

8) End our nation-building foreign policy.

Trump's foreign policy plan says he will end "the current strategy of nation-building and regime change." Congress should support this, including by reasserting its constitutional authority over the use of military force. That means the president may not use force — except to repel a sudden attack on the United States — unless Congress authorizes it.

9) Enact a balanced budget.

Sean Hannity asked Trump on Fox News on June 17, 2015: "Would you insist on a balanced budget as president?" Trump responded: "I would insist on it relatively soon."

When President Barack Obama took office, the federal debt was about 10.6 trillion. Now it is about $19.9 trillion.

Obama and the last Republican Congress kept America on the road to bankruptcy. President Trump and the new Republican Congress must lead us back the other way — and they cannot do it too soon.



Thank You Mr Jeffrey and CNS.

Friday, December 30, 2016

Obama Unleashes 3,853 Regulations, 18 For Every Law In 2016 - Record 97,110 Pages of Red Tape

weaselzippers



Thousands of federal bureaucrats, over whom we have no electoral recourse, are churning out thousands of new laws and regulations every year. Those laws and regulations are now affecting almost every aspect of our personal lives and restraining American business at home and abroad. January 20th can’t get here soon enough. (emphasis ours)

Via Washington Examiner:


President Obama’s lame duck administration poured on thousands more new regulations in 2016 at a rate of 18 for every new law passed, according to a Friday analysis of his team’s expansion of federal authority.

While Congress passed just 211 laws, Obama’s team issued an accompanying 3,852 new federal regulations, some costing billions of dollars.

The 2016 total was the highest annual number of regulations under Obama. Former President Bush issued more in the wake of 9/11.

The proof that it was an overwhelming year for rules and regulations is in the Federal Register, which ended the year Friday by printing a record-setting 97,110 pages, according to the analysis from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The annual “Unconstitutional Index” from Clyde Wayne Crews, CEI’s vice president for policy, said that it was much higher under Obama than under former President George W. Bush.

“The multiple did tend to be higher during Obama administration. Bush’s eight years averaged 20, while Obama’s almost-eight have averaged 29,” said his report, first provided to Secrets.

Keep reading…


Thank You Wash Examiner and Huck funn.

Putin Says American Diplomats Won't Be Expelled, Invites Children of US Diplomats In Russia To New Years Eve Celebration In Kremlin

Putin not interested in being Obama's bag man.

"No, Barack, I'm not torpedoing US/Russia Relations by expelling US Diplomats just to massage your wounded ego. I'll deal with the Real President after he's inaugurated in January."

weaselzippers



Obama expels Russian diplomats and Putin tweets back with clowns. Perfect.

Via USA Today:

President Vladimir Putin resisted a call Friday to expel U.S. diplomats in response to a new round of election-related sanctions against Russia.

The move goes against the advice of Putin’s foreign minister and signaled the Russian leader’s apparent willingness to wait until the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump to restore wounded U.S.-Russia relations.

In a potential tit-for-tat action, Sergey Lavrov earlier Friday called for the expulsion of 35 U.S. diplomats and the closure of two facilities in Moscow after Washington on Thursday sanctioned Russian intelligence officials, expelled 35 Russian diplomats suspected of being spies and shut down two Russian facilities in the United States over evidence Russia interfered in this year’s presidential election.

“We will not create problems for U.S. diplomats,” Putin said in a statement. “We will not expel anybody.” Putin said the fresh U.S. measures contravened “the fundamental interests of both the Russian and American people.”

In a further mark of apparent appeasement, the Russian president invited the children of U.S. diplomats in Russia to a New Year’s Eve party in the Kremlin.

Lavrov called for the expulsion of 31 employees at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and four in the U.S. consulate in Saint Petersburg. He added that the foreign ministry submitted a proposal to Putin to bar U.S. diplomats from using two facilities in Moscow — a vacation house and a warehouse.

He said that claims by President Obama’s administration that Russia was behind cyber-attacks that targeted the U.S. election were “groundless.”

“The outgoing U.S. administration of Barack Obama accusing Russia of all mortal sins, trying to blame us for the failure of its foreign policy initiatives, among other things, has put forward additional accusations without any grounds whatsoever that the Russian state was behind attempts to meddle in the U.S. election campaign, which led to the defeat of the democratic candidate,” he said in a speech. “We, of course, cannot leave insults of this kind unanswered.”

But the lack of a response Friday does not mean Russia will not take any counter-measures. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, promised late Thursday that Russia would “cause serious discomfort to the American side” as a result of the sanctions.

The last time the U.S. expelled Russian diplomats on this scale was in 2001, when 51 were ejected for spying.

The dispute is another example of an increasingly frosty diplomatic relationship between Moscow and Washington that has suffered major setbacks during Obama’s tenure and recalled Cold War-era animosity over differences over Moscow’s support for separatists in Ukraine and Syrian President Bashar Assad.

After Lavrov’s comments, the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom tweeted an image of a hand, apparently located in the U.S., throwing a boomerang bearing the words “Anti-Russian Sanctions” toward Russia. The tweet added: “MFA: American people humiliated by its own President,” referring to the ministry of foreign affairs.
Keep reading…


Thank You Huck Funn, RusConsulGen, and USA Today.

FBI, DHS Release Report On Russian Hacking

Just got to this. Haven't read the joint report yet. Last 9 days were OBE. 

The Hill

By Katie Bo Williams - 12/29/16 03:02 PM EST



The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday released a joint report detailing how federal investigators linked the Russian government to hacks of Democratic Party organizations.

The document makes clear reference to the hacks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, though it does not mention either by name.

The 13-page report provides technical details regarding tools and infrastructure used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services to “compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities.” (See the entire report below.)

But security experts say that the document provides little in the way of forensic "proof" to confirm the government's attribution. Private security firms — like CrowdStrike, who investigated the DNC breach — went much further, they say.

"The DHS statement is a restatement of already known public information, a series of technical indicators that are intended for use by cybersecurity professionals in finding and remediating APT28 malware on private sector networks, and some generic advice for companies as to how to improve their network security," said Matt Tait, founder of the U.K.-based security consultancy Capital Alpha Security.
APT28 refers to one of the hacking groups affiliated with Russian intelligence believed to have infiltrated the DNC.

The U.S. report, known as a “Joint Analysis Report” or JAR, refers to the Russian hacking campaign as “Grizzly Steppe.”

It comes as part of a slate of retaliatory measures against Russia issued Thursday by the Obama administration in response to the hacks, and expands on a joint statement issued by the two agencies in October, formally attributing the attacks to Russia.

In the October statement, officials described the the hacks and subsequent publication of stolen emails on WikiLeaks as an attempt to “interfere” with the U.S. election that is “consistent with the Russian-directed efforts,” but provided no evidence to support their assessment.

President-elect Donald Trump has denied that Russia was involved in the hacks, and Obama has been under pressure to provide proof.

It's unclear whether Thursday's report will satisfy critics. The administration is in the process of preparing a more detailed classified review of Russian interference, to be delivered to Congress before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

"That this document doesn't engage with the question of attribution seems, to me, to be quite deliberate," Tait noted. "It's purpose is to act as a measure against Russia (by adding a U.S. stamp of approval to private sector information, and making life harder for APT28 by exposing some of their malware), not to persuade the public that the DNC hack was by Russia."

Private security firms provided more detailed forensic analysis linking the break-in to Moscow, which the FBI and DHS said Thursday correlated with the IC’s findings.

“The Joint Analysis Report recognizes the excellent work undertaken by security companies and private sector network owners and operators, and provides new indicators of compromise and malicious infrastructure identified during the course of investigations and incident response,” read a statement.

The report identifies two Russian intelligence groups already named by CrowdStrike and other private security firms.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, is the main successor to the KGB — once headed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The FSB is thought to be behind the hacking group known as APT29. A more traditional, long-range intelligence agency, the FSB lurked on the DNC systems for over a year.

The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, is thought to be behind the second group that infiltrated the DNC, known as APT28. APT28 is also believed to have breached Podesta’s emails.

Despite their overlapping targets, the two agencies have different missions in the cyber realm.

APT28 is thought to be the group responsible for “doxxing” the DNC and Podesta by allegedly providing the stolen missives to WikiLeaks to publish.

Both organizations gained access to the DNC through targeted spearphishing campaigns, in which the hackers tricked targeted users into clicking bogus links that either deployed malware or directed them to a fake webmail domain hosted on Russian infrastructure.

APT28 was able to use harvested credentials to then gain access and steal content, according to the report. This likely led “to the exfiltration of information from multiple senior party members.”

“The U.S. Government assesses that information was leaked to the press and publicly disclosed,” the report says.

The report also states that Russian intelligence operatives continued to launch spearphishing attacks on the Democratic party following the election, “including one launched ... just days after" the vote.

— Updated 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 30. 





Thank You Ms Williams and The Hill.


Tuesday, December 20, 2016

So Now Whose Nutz? Psychiatry Professors Ask Obama To COMMAND Trump To Commit To Mental Examination


Illuminati U, again. 

dailycaller

 Eric Owens Education Editor
8:36 AM 12/19/2016

A trio of psychiatrists has sent a letter to President Barack Obama advising him to command President-elect Donald Trump to submit to “a full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation.” The psychiatrists want Obama to make Trump get his head examined because they believe Trump “cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.” 


[Ed; as in Hospitals in SF not existing?
As in buying 'penis shaped stress toys' for gay men to make them mentally healthy by reducing their stress levels?]
The Huffington Post is reporting the letter, dated Nov. 29, as legitimate.

Here is the full text of the apparently wholly serious letter:

“Dear President Obama,

We are writing to express our grave concern regarding the mental stability of our President-Elect. Professional standards do not permit us to venture a diagnosis for a public figure whom we have not evaluated personally. Nevertheless, his widely reported symptoms of mental instability — including grandiosity, impulsivity, hypersensitivity to slights or criticism, and an apparent inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality — lead us to question his fitness for the immense responsibilities of the office. We strongly recommend that, in preparation for assuming these responsibilities, he receive a full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation by an impartial team of investigators.”

The authors of the letter are Nanette Gartrell, Dee Mosbacher and Judith Herman.

Gartrell, a retired psychiatry professor, is currently the principal researcher for the US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, an outfit which tracks lesbians who have children through artificial insemination.

Gartrell is married to Mosbacher, one of the other two authors of the letter to Obama about Trump’s “mental stability.”

Completing this poll entitles you to Daily Caller news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Mosbacher, a retired professor and filmmaker who “understands the suffering caused by homophobia from a psychological and psychosocial point of view,” is Gartrell’s “spouse of 40 years,” according to Gartrell’s bio. Photos of Mosbacher and of Gatrell show them with identical haircuts and remarkably similar eyeglasses.

A website promoting a book by Gartrell features a photo of Obama sandwiched between Gartrell and Mosbacher, with his arms around both of them.


A 2005 story in The New York Times memorializes the actual marriage between Gartrell and Mosbacher. The Times story notes that the lesbian couple tied the knot in Canada.

Also of interest, Mosbacher’s father, Robert Mosbacher, was the U.S. commerce secretary under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1992.

Herman, the third author of the letter questioning Trump’s “fitness for the immense responsibilities” of the presidency, is a part-time psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School.

She is the author of a book entitled “Father-Daughter Incest” — a “rethinking of incest” that is “profoundly, passionately feminist.”

The Huffington Post’s publication of the letter urging Obama to force Trump to undergo psychiatric intervention includes an explanation of the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of narcissistic personality disorder.

There are nine criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, HuffPo says, including “exaggerates achievements and talents,” “is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success,” believes “that he or she is ‘special,'” “requires excessive admiration” and “is interpersonally exploitative.”

“If someone does criticize them, even in a Tweet or on a television comedy show, it triggers this deep and painful lack of self-esteem and they MUST lash out to relieve the pain of the criticism,” The Huffington Post reports.

HuffPo writer Richard Greene — a “communication strategist” who was previously the host of a radio show called “Hollywood CLOUT!” — worries that Trump, as president, will unilaterally use the U.S. military or even “7,000 nuclear warheads” to lash out at “a perceived or real enemy” who crosses him personally.

The Huffington Post also links to interviews (on Facebook and on YouTube) with Lynne Meyer, a clinical psychologist “trained in South Africa” who is deeply concerned about the impending Trump presidency.

Follow Eric on Twitter. Like Eric on Facebook. Send education-related story tips to erico@dailycaller.com.
Tags: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Psychiatry


Thank You Mr Owens and Daily Caller.



Friday, December 16, 2016

Ralph Vaughan Williams Symphonies 7, 8, 9

Christmas is coming, and with it that white noise of canned Christmas Carols blacking out radio broadcasts.

We'll try to post a few more to get you through to the 26th.

Symphony #7



Symphony #8


Symphony #9

20 States Sue Six Drugmakers For Alleged Price Fixing

RT News

Six generic drug companies, including Heritage Pharmaceuticals and EpiPen-maker Mylan NV, conspired to manipulate prices of two common drugs, 20 US states allege in a new lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in US District Court for the District of Connecticut, says that the six companies — which also include Mayne Pharma, Aurobindo Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Citron Pharma LLC — participated in price manipulation of doxycycline hyclate, an antibiotic, and glyburide, a treatment drug for diabetics, Reuters reported.

Heritage Pharmaceuticals Inc. is named as the "ring leader" of the alleged scheme. A company spokesman said any price-fixing it conducted was the responsibility of executives that no longer work for Heritage.
The lawsuit is connected to a larger antitrust investigation by various states and federal law enforcement of more than two dozen generic drugmakers. Most of the companies are cooperating with authorities, and charges could come by the end of 2016, Bloomberg News reported last month.

The suit alleges that drug company executives and others "entered into numerous illegal conspiracies in order to unreasonably restrain trade, artificially inflate and manipulate prices and reduce competition" for the two drugs, the New York Attorney General's Office said in a statement.

"The defendants routinely coordinated their schemes through direct interaction with their competitors at industry trade shows, customer conferences and other events, as well as through direct email, phone and text message communications," the suit alleges, according to the New York Attorney General's Office, causing "significant, harmful and continuing effects in the country’s healthcare system."

In the suit, the 20 states allege that the companies understood their actions to be illegal and took steps to cover their conduct once they became aware of investigations into their activities.

Mylan has come under fire of late for price hikes of EpiPen, a vital device for people suffering from a life-threatening allergic reaction known as anaphylactic shock, which requires immediate treatment. The company also allegedly defrauded Medicaid over its EpiPen products.

"To date, we know of no evidence that Mylan participated in price fixing," company spokeswoman Nina Devlin told Reuters.

A Teva spokeswoman said the company is currently reviewing the suit, while the other three companies did not offer comment.

In addition to New York, the states suing the companies include Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington.

Thank You RT News.
 

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Obama Doubles Down On Trump, Blames Russia For Hacking

weaselzippers



Russia supposedly hacked the White House and the State Department in October 2014. But Obama made nothing of it, and the MSM barely covered it in relation to its freakout now. Yet the information at risk then was far more important than emails of the DNC. Why was it minimized then? Because of the elections in November where Obama didn’t want the Democrats being seen as weak on cyber security.

He even acknowledges here that they try to influence every election. We were told, ad infinitum, that Russia hacked the DNC. So we already had it in our calculus when we voted.

But why is it important here? Because Democrats are searching for anything to delegitimize the election.

So investigate Russia and stop being lazy about cyber security. But don’t you dare try to delegitimize the election because of it.

Via NY Post:


President Obama blamed Russia for interfering with the US presidential election — and criticized President-elect Donald Trump for “flying blind” by not taking his intelligence briefings seriously.

“Russia trying to influence our elections dates back to the Soviet Union. What they did here, hacking some emails and releasing them, is not a particularly fancy brand of espionage or propaganda,” Obama said Monday night on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

And the president went on to condemn the media’s “obsession” with “fairly routine stuff” included in the hacked emails released throughout the presidential campaign.

“The real question that I think we all have to reflect on is what’s happened to our political system where some emails that were hacked and released ended up being the overwhelming story and the constant source of coverage, breathless coverage that was depicted as somehow damning in all sorts of ways, when the truth of the matter was it was fairly routine stuff,” he said.

Keep reading…


Thank You The Hill and Nick. 


Couldn't have anything to do with the utter disaster his Administration was.

Blame the Russians.  

Blame the Voters.

Too stupid to know what's good for them

NYC Offering Workers Therapy To Cope With Trump Induced Stress From Election

Therapy: It's political, not medical.

weaselzippers


Insane.

Ed; Of Course it's 'Insane'. The mental health workers need a Mental Illness BILLING CODE to get paid. 

Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Via NY Post:

New York City is offering its municipal workforce counseling services and other support for dealing with election-year stress brought on by Donald Trump’s election.

In a Dec. 1 email, the de Blasio administration pointed to mental health resources that are available to workers who are “feeling distressed or vulnerable following the election results.”

“We have seen the concerns expressed on social media and we are monitoring them closely,” the emails reads.

The half-dozen agencies involved include the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Department of Education, as well as Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policies Richard Buery, who is overseeing the city’s mental health initiative known as Thrive NYC.

Since the election, Mayor de Blasio has been reassuring New Yorkers that his administration will work to protect them from potentially harmful polices that have been proposed by Trump over the past year — particularly on immigration.
Keep reading…

Thank You NY Post and Nick. 


Jesus Loves You.

Trump Wants You To Be Able To Find A Job. 

San Francisco To Spend Millions of Tax Dollars On Lawyers For Illegal Immigrants

You expected less?

weaselzippers


Via Fox News:
It appears San Francisco is making another move to avoid complying with federal immigration law.

City supervisors are considering a proposal that would give illegal immigrant residents legal representation in deportation proceedings.

Claudia Cowan explained on “America’s Newsroom” that San Francisco is basically doubling down on its sanctuary city status.

Cowan reported that activists recently gathered outside city hall to demand that detainees have access to immigration lawyers, and to voice their concerns about President-elect Donald Trump.

County supervisor David Campos argued that everyone in America deserves the same access to public resources, regardless of citizenship status.

“We’re going to invest the resources needed to make sure that the 44,000 undocumented people who live in this city and county of San Francisco have, at a minimum, legal representation if they’re taken into immigration court,” Campos said.

Cowan said that critics, on the other hand, argue that policies like this continue to “roll out the welcome mat” for illegal immigrants, and waste tax dollars.

The proposal would reportedly cost taxpayers $5 million.

Thank You Fox and Zip. 


Let's see what incoming US AG Jeff Sessions is made of.

New Regulation Bans States From Defunding Planned Parenthood "For Political Reasons"

weaselzippers

Objecting to funding the murder of the unborn is now too Political  rather than a Hands Off Freedom of Religion/1st Amendment Right.

Perfectly logical in light of Govt funded Mind Control masquerading as Health Care.


Via The Hill:
The Obama administration on Wednesday released a long-awaited regulation that bars states from defunding Planned Parenthood for political reasons.
The rule comes after more than a dozen GOP governors and state legislatures have attempted to block Medicaid funding from going toward Planned Parenthood clinics in their state.

Nearly all the defunding actions have been challenged in court, and many have already been struck down, including in Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas.
Dr. Karen Scott, the chief medical officer at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said the rule “clarifies that all organizations able to provide these services should be eligible to compete for funds.”
Keep reading…

Thank You The Hill and Zip.

Stein Recount Backfires More: Voter Irregularities Discovered In Detroit Where Hillary Won Big, More Votes Registered Than Actual Ballots

weaselzippers

 
Update to this story. They’re going to do an audit and GOP is calling for an investigation.
DETROIT NEWS – Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month’s presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News.

Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts…tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday […]
The problems were the worst in Detroit, where discrepancies meant officials couldn’t recount votes in 392 precincts, or nearly 60 percent. And two-thirds of those precincts had too many votes.

“There’s always going to be small problems to some degree, but we didn’t expect the degree of problem we saw in Detroit. This isn’t normal,” said Krista Haroutunian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers.
State officials are planning to examine about 20 Detroit precincts where ballot boxes opened during the recount had fewer ballots than poll workers had recorded on Election Day.
HT: RS


Thank You Detroit News and Nick.