“Feeling seen” describes the sensation of being fully recognized, understood, and validated for who you are, your emotions, and your experiences by others. It’s a feeling of deep connection and can be incredibly empowering, leading to a sense of belonging and less isolation.
It may be as you read my commentary Monday is on the horizon, the beginning of a new week, new challenges, new obstacles, a start to a new race but carrying the effects of the one you have been running. Maybe you are facing some challenges that appear to have no real positive answer or positive direction from which you will emerge better off than last week or month or year. All around are arguments both pro and con as to what Trump has accomplished, what Trump promised to be accomplished but has yet delivered, what difference has he made in your personal existence on this earth? Headlines, lawsuits, arrests, threats of impeachment (again) fill the very air we breathe and have become commonplace. With all these political, national security, national economic challenges, YOU may be facing tomorrow or this week challenges that are not making any news nor even raising an eyebrow with anyone except yourself, and your most immediate family, unless they, too, have become like leaves in the wind.
Walking through a valley of deepest darkness can really be discouraging, sobering, leaving you to feel alone, even forgotten, or at least misplaced. Yes, you may be busy but feel absolutely unproductive, not at all making a positive difference in this world of hurry up. There are many who hide these deep intimate feelings and thoughts, but they are out there, they are coming across your path but possibly unnoticed. Seeing the person under a bridge or on a street corner with a homemade sign asking for help is one dimension. I do not choose to write that person off as insignificant or a drain on society. I wish, however, for my thoughts herein to challenge you to look around even more closely, quite possibly to a coworker, the cashier at the Circle K or Grocery Store, the food server at the cafe, a schoolteacher, a white collar cuff linked person with a tie, or female with nice looking attire in a professional office, look around. Now may I challenge you?
What if this week you could help someone be “seen.” Yes, not simply looked at but seen as the individual they are? I learned repeatedly that many folks are empty inside but don’t need to be fixed as much as simply heard. To be individually seen and not simply passed by. What if this week you helped to build something more meaningful than profits in your business or corporation? What if you made a decision to go through this week extending various acts of kindness to those with whom you met? I was taught many years ago that one small act of kindness can rewrite a life. Kindness, real kindness, doesn’t show up when it’s convenient, it shows up when the world, a person, least expects it.
I was introduced the past ten days to folks who are not broken but they are tired, really tired. Being tired doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’ve cared for too long without someone caring back. I pray I am able to take what I have seen in these folks and extend to them what I learned growing up…to care back about them, each one individually and without fanfare or embarrassment to them, but actual measurable acts of demonstrative caring so they know that they know, each one, has been truly “seen” and “heard.”
Now I am asking you through this commentary to look around. Sincerely look around. Would you actively consider how you can make a difference, to build something other than profits or political gain. To do something that makes others better off for your having been there.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.2025-04-27 18:14:242025-04-27 18:15:27Help others to FEEL SEEN
Left-wing media has identified a dangerous new political archetype: the thin, fertile, Republican woman.
Beware the burgeoning online “womanosphere” urging an audience of young women away from feminism and towards marriage, children, and being attractive, warns The Guardian. The outlet points to prominent conservative commentators such as Brett Cooper and Candace Owens, along with publications like Evie Magazine, as emblematic of this clunkily-named counterpart to the “manosphere.”
These women are united by their “desire to return to a gender-essentialist worldview,” according to The Guardian, which casts “women as submissive homemakers” and “men as strong providers.”
Oh, the horror. “Gender-essentialism” refers to the outlandish belief that men and women are different. One is free to draw varied conclusions from this fact. The left has taken up a strange quarrel with the concept of biological sex itself, an argument which defeats itself at the outset. How can one analyze why female commentators specifically appeal to females without acknowledging the validity of the category?
The outlet warns of “an organized effort” to create an “alternative rightwing media ecosystem targeting young female US audiences.” One discerns the outlet’s terror at the prospect — no great wonder, given the much vaunted “podcast strategy” helped win over young male voters to Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
“Organized” is supposed to be a dirty word. It connotes an insidious masterplan to take women off birth control and put them on quick-slimming diets. But the legacy media, with its extreme left-wing bias, is surely no less organized and strident in its political and cultural prescriptions than the “right-wing media.” Notice the asymmetry in terms. The New York Times and Netflix are simply media. They claim neutral ground. It’s a powerful rhetorical trick. If they can successfully assert themselves as unbiased observers and artists, they fashion reality itself in their terms.
This strategy shifts the window of acceptable belief to the left. Sure, they say, we welcome a diversity of opinion — anywhere between Hillary Clinton and a Tesla vandal. Any objections to left-wing madness are easily characterized and dismissed as “extreme.” Including objections which members of the Democratic Party levied just twenty years ago.
“I believe that marriage is not just a bond, but a sacred bond between man and woman,” said a younger Clinton. “It exists between a man and a woman going back into the mists of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization.”
Sounds an awful lot like a “womanosphere” talking point.
“Young women are particularly vulnerable to these appeals,” according to The Guardian. This is the proposition of feminism: women deserve all the same rights as men but are agentless creatures capable of none of the same responsibilities. It seems a tension born not out of logic, but political maneuvering. Feminism cloaks itself in the language of equality to disguise a cheap aim: endless goodies. This, at the cost of the well-being of men and women alike.
The Guardian blames conservative commentators for “capitalizing on a real crisis of loneliness” among young people.
“Conservatives aren’t focusing on the real issues,” whines the leftist, “Like making sure third graders have a robust understanding of prostitution and bondage.” Appeals to unity from the left are always bungled by their own inability to cleave from Woke.
“Don’t let them trick us into thinking we can be separated into rural and urban,” said Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) at a recent rally. “Black and white and Latino.” Note the capitalization from her producers. Even in a sentence calling for unity, she can’t help but isolate “white.”
Do not let them trick you into thinking we are enemies.
Do not let them trick you into thinking that we can be separated into rural and urban, Black and white and Latino.
More to the point: why shouldn’t one relate young people’s loneliness to a culture plunging leftwards? At the very least, one must admit a correlation between rising alienation and rising egalitarianism. It seems no outlandish conjecture that men and women might be happier and more at ease with one another were they to assume some “antiquated,” sex-specific standards. And basic hygiene and fitness.
“Young women have been hailed as the saving grace of the Democratic party, the force that will deliver us from all those angry young men spending all their time listening to podcasts, but that’s not a given,” writes The Guardian.
Therein lies a sick admission. The Democratic Party prefers women fat, infertile, single, and unhappy. Why? Because those women make the most fervent ideologues. Leftism inverts natural hierarchies. It lofts the ugly and sick above the beautiful. It punishes any natural inclination towards the latter. This appeals to malcontents who depend on such an infrastructure to confer them status and meaning. Or a green card, as the case may be.
Who profits by a woman being thin and fertile? Why, only the woman herself, the young man interested in dating and marrying her, her future family, and all the rest of society by extension. The left’s supposed concern for female “freedom” and “independence” is false. They’d just prefer women be dependent on the state, not a husband.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2025-04-26 07:11:552025-04-26 07:18:02SANDOVAL: Left Wing Media Seethes At Young, Fertile, Republican Women
This is the second most important challenge of most people’s life.
Writing this, I’m audaciously stepping into the area of expertise of my friend John Rosemond.
John has made a career out of giving parenting advice. At one point, he had a weekly column in a few hundred US newspapers. See his excellent books here. He has also given hundreds of popular parenting talks all over the country. I’m sure that he will share his wisdom in the comments below.
Triggering Life-Changing Thoughts —
Let’s say that when cleaning their attic, two parents came across a Genie.
After getting introduced, the Genie said that he ordinarily grants three wishes, but since there are two of you (and he feels generous), today he’ll grant four! His offer is that he will grant their wishes for four (4) outcomes for their six-year-old child by the time they turn 18.
What would the parents ask for?
The first parent gave this some thought and said that they wanted their child to be:
Healthy
Happy
Straight A student, and
Successful in some sport.
The second parent could see some merit in their partner’s thoughts, so decided to build on them. After some joint critical thinking and discussion, they both agreed that their final answer was for their child to be:
Physically Healthy (have good dietary and exercise habits.
Mentally Healthy (be a Critical Thinker).
Socailly Healthy (communicative, considerate, etc. and…
Spritually Healthy (have a strong Value System, e.g. sound morals.
Regarding the first parent’s original thoughts, they mutually agreed that if their child has these four things, it will also be almost guaranteed that they will be a happy, well-performing student, with success in some sport!
Note that their answer said nothing about them being best friends with their child, which is a very common major parenting mistake. The parents’ job is to see that their child turns into an adult with the above attributes — not to be their BFO. Interestingly (as explained here), being your child’s best friend and a proper parent are frequently in direct conflict.
If parenting is successful, the new adult will have a superior chance of being a happy, productive person. That is the ultimate parental reward.
What would YOU say if you had that opportunity?
The two main points of this fantasy exercise are that parents should:
Have very specific goals regarding what they will call successful child rearing (ideally in writing to minimize misunderstandings), and
Then decide whether their K-12 schooling is an asset or liability regarding each of their goals. (Where it is not, they need to fix that!)
To answer #1, parents need to take a major step back and resolve what their goals are for themselves!
Whether we think about it or not, there will be a day of reckoning for every one of us.
It’s up to each of us to decide what will happen at that time, and then live appropriately.
My view is that when we cash our chips in, there will be a final balancing of our account. What will be the assets and liabilities listed on that ledger? Most importantly, what will be the Net?
The Bottom Line —
My perspective is that these are the two most important life goals:
Have a successful life — i.e., finish with a net asset ledger, and
Assist others to end up with a net asset ledger.
These “others” can be:
Members of your original family (e.g., a sibling),
Spouse
Child
Relatives
Friends or acquaintances
Other associates (e.g., readers of this Substack)
Some other interesting articles about child-rearing:
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2025 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
President Donald Trump’s doctor said Sunday the president “exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health” in a memo released by the White House.
Trump underwent his annual physical examination Friday, spending nearly five hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the Associated Press reported. United States Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella took note of Trump’s “active lifestyle” in the memo sent to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“President Trump’s days include multiple meetings, public appearances, press availability and frequent victories in golf events,” Barbabella wrote in the memo.
According to the memo, Trump weighed 224 pounds, and had a blood pressure of 128/74, with a resting pulse of 62 while scoring 30 out of a possible 30 on a cognitive test. The memo noted a scar from the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which Trump’s right ear was grazed by a bullet and “benign lesions” on his skin.
The memo also listed that Trump was taking two medications to control cholesterol, a cream for a skin condition and aspirin as a preventative measure.
“President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander in Chief and Head of State,” Barbabella wrote. The physical was the first for Trump since he started his second term after succeeding President Joe Biden, whose health and cognitive abilities were widely questioned.
A Wall Street Journal article published Dec. 19, 2024, revealed White House aides “insulated” then-President Joe Biden, even from Cabinet members, as his health declined. The WSJ published similararticles prior to Biden’s July 21, 2024, decision to withdraw from the race, which generated pushback from some other media outlets.
Questions were also raised about the White House’s truthfulness about Biden’s health. On multiple occasions, Biden said he spoke with people who had died, including claiming to have spoken with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, and former French President Francois Mitterrand, who passed away in 1996 on two occasions in February.
In September 2022, Biden asked for Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana at a conference on hunger that took place several weeks after Walorski and two staffers were killed in a car accident.
Biden also suffered multiple falls during his term in office, including one at the Air Force Academy in June 2023, a fall while on his bike in June 2022 and tripping on the steps of Air Force One on multiple occasions. Biden took a different set of stairs onto the VC-25, a modified Boeing 747 used as Air Force One, among other concessions to his age in the later years of his administration.
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http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2025-04-14 15:34:242025-04-14 15:42:16‘Fully Fit’: White House Physician Releases Details On President Trump’s ‘Excellent Health’
Israeli scientists have discovered how to ensure further efficiency in quantum technology, meaning advanced computers used across various sectors will now run better than ever.
Researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Cornell University have discovered how to keep “quantum spin” – the technology that keeps computers based on this technology active – going for longer.
This means that information stored on the computers that could sometimes be lost when quantum atoms lost their “spin” will now be saved.
Quantum computers are already highly efficient and fast and are currently utilized across various fields, such as medicine, space exploration, cybersecurity, and banking.
Scientists have now found that the electrons in tiny magnetic properties of atoms that store information can now keep spinning by applying low magnetic fields.
Often, when these electrons encounter certain types of light, they lose their “spin”, and, therefore, their ability to retain information, but the application of magnetic fields can keep the electrons spinning endlessly.
The study was led by Mark Dikopoltsev and Avraham Berrebi, under the supervision of Prof. Uriel Levy from the Hebrew University’s Institute of Applied Physics and Nano Center and Prof. Or Katz from Cornell University.
Dikopoltsev commented: “Our results show that low magnetic fields are not just useful for avoiding decoherence from random, spin-conserving interactions, they can actively suppress more damaging relaxation processes, giving us a powerful tool for preserving spin coherence.”
In the field of medicine, quantum computers are often used in drug development, MRI machines, and image processing.
Additionally, quantum technology is used in sensors, batteries, quantum clocks, and AI.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Storyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Story2025-04-13 05:57:232025-04-13 05:58:41New Discoveries in Quantum Physics Will Further Efficiency in Medicine, Space Exploration and More
A $25 million program that offered taxpayer funds to promote LGBTQ ideology abroad has been removed from the State Department website by the Trump administration.
The Biden administration State Department’s Global Equality Fund posted its final grant application solicitation on Jan. 6, offering $2.1 million to help LGBTQ people “mitigate and recover from violence and restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms,” “eliminate laws which criminalize LGBTQI+ status and/or conduct,” and advance the fund’s goals in other ways.
In 2023, the Global Equality Fund invited projects led or supported by LGBTQ organizations and communities to apply to win awards of between $750,000 and $1.5 million. In 2021, the fund offered up to $1 million to LGBTQ “empowerment” projects in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
But on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump paused foreign aid for 90 days to assess “programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.” Four days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio halted spending on most existing foreign aid grants.
The stop-work order included grants and programs under the Global Equality Fund.
“The Department of State conducted a full review of foreign assistance programs, led by Secretary Rubio, to ensure efforts effectuate U.S. foreign policy,” the State Department press office told The Daily Signal. “Programs not advancing President Trump’s priorities were terminated.”
Trump issued executive orders prohibiting government-funded promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion; radical gender ideology; and critical race theory.
The Global Equality Fund was removed from the State Department’s website, and it is now only available under a 2021-2025 archived content page.
The cuts to State Department foreign funding projects are part of the Trump administration’s wider effort to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse” from the federal government.
The Department of Government Efficiency is “finding levels of fraud and waste and abuse like, I think, nobody ever thought possible,” Trump has said.
The Global Equality Fund was “dedicated to advancing and defending the human rights and fundamental freedoms” of LGBTQ people around the world, according to the former webpage on the State Department’s website.
The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor managed the global LGBTQ fund with the support of foreign governments, businesses, and foundations, including the Human Rights Campaign, one of the largest LGBTQ rights organizations.
During its 10-year tenure, the Global Equality Fund distributed more than $100 million to more than 100 countries in order to “achieve LGBTQ equality.”
“There is not enough appreciation or understanding for how much funding the federal government provides for causes associated with the political left,” David Ditch, senior analyst in fiscal policy at Economic Policy Innovation Center, told The Daily Signal. “This problem ramped up during the Biden administration, and even though President Trump is pushing back, Congress must take action as well.”
Thimerosal, an ingredient in several childhood vaccines, is linked to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
The U.S. government has for years been telling parents that a mercury-based vaccine preservative called thimerosal poses no harm to children but that, out of an abundance of caution, the ingredient hasn’t been included in childhood vaccines since at least 2001.
Attkisson described them as part of “a concerted propaganda campaign to mislead the public” about thimerosal and the science linking it to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Attkisson’s investigation highlights how government agencies, along with the mainstream medical and media establishment, colluded for decades to promote a false narrative about the toxic chemical.
On the one hand, they misled the public about its known and possible harms and actively worked to discredit anyone who questioned its safety. On the other hand, they falsely assured the public that it had been removed from vaccines. Anyone who stated otherwise was branded a conspiracy theorist.
The fact is, thimerosal is still used today in some vaccines, Attkisson said, including some that are advertised as “thimerosol free.”
Her report shows that evidence linking the chemical to neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, has existed for decades. It also shines a light on the purposeful agenda to rewrite the scientific narrative around the devastating neurotoxin to hide that link from the public.
Websites for the CDC, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a key source for vaccine-industry propaganda promoted by Googleand an army of bought-and-paid-for “fact checkers,” have long posted statements leading the public to believe thimerosal had been removed years ago from children’s vaccines.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia states on its website that thimerosal “was removed from vaccines after an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act was signed into law on Nov. 21, 1997.”
“These claims would receive five outrageous Pinocchios from any neutral fact-checking organization,” Attkisson wrote.
The screenshots all show thimerosal as an ingredient in vaccines available to children in the U.S., including in flu shots and some tetanus shots.
There can only be one reason why a government lies to its people in an effort to harm its children. They want a dumbed-down, mentally stunted, weak and passive population. And if that’s what they want, you have to ask yourself, why? Whose interests are served by dumbed-down, weak and passive population? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Leo Hohmannhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLeo Hohmann2025-04-11 05:19:062025-04-11 05:25:58Government and medical establishment continue to poison our children with mercury and then lie about it to parents
Country music star John Rich told President Donald Trump that the reason his supporters booed him at his rallies during his 2024 bid for the White House was because of his constant bragging about Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s controversial COVID-19 program that led to the deaths and injuries of millions of Americans.
Rich explained to the hosts of the Try That In a Small Town Podcast that he was at a dinner with Trump and other high-ranking Republican politicians several years ago. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, as well as then-Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker were also present, sitting around a table.
Knowing that Rich is a seasoned performer, Trump turned to Rich and asked for advice on how to deal with his tough crowds.
“[Trump] goes, ‘why are people booing me at my rallies when I bring up the vaccine?’” Rich said.
Before sharing his answer, Rich explained to the podcast hosts that he knew Trump was extremely proud of Operation Warp Speed so he had to collect himself before speaking directly to him.
Listen to him describe, in the video below, how the conversation went down from there. It really is quite stunning.
It took a country music singer for God to get through to Donald Trump about the evils of his horrifying “miracle vaccine.”
God bless John Rich. One of the few, maybe the only one, who had the guts to tell the truth about Warp Speed to the President of the United States of America, the man who triggered it all.
And Trump seems to have listened. You don’t hear him bragging about Warp Speed like he used to do constantly at every opportunity.
I also love how Rich put the corrupt globalist Senator Lindsey Graham in his place after Graham accused Rich of being a “conspiracy theorist.” Graham is a scourge on this country, an embarrassment and a pathetic excuse for a leader. If he is legitimately elected every six years, then shame on the people of South Carolina.
Sad to say, Trump still has not learned from Rich on what to make of Graham, as Trump recently gave Graham a ringing endorsement for his 2026 Senate re-election campaign.
If Trump really is an anti-globalist and against forever wars, he should be able to recognize a died-in-the-wool globalist like Lindsey Graham. It’s really not that difficult.
Please visit LeoHohmann.com: Investigative reporting on globalism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and where politics, culture and religion intersect.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Leo Hohmannhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLeo Hohmann2025-04-11 04:57:082025-04-11 04:57:08VIDEO: The day President Trump finally got told the truth about Operation Warp Speed
The Supreme Court permitted the Trump administration on Monday to use a wartime authority to deport alleged members of a foreign gang.
In a 5-4 ruling, the majority tossed orders by U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, that blocked the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador.
“AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act,” the court’s order states. “The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.
Following tonight’s landmark Supreme Court ruling, the American people can rest assured that @Sec_Noem, @RealTomHoman and I will direct our assets to scour the country for any remnants of Tren De Aragua and DEPORT THEM.
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) April 7, 2025
The Trump administration argued Boasberg exceeded his authority in issuing his March order, telling the justices that the issue “presents fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security related operations in this country—the President, through Article II, or the Judiciary, through TROs.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi called the Monday decision a “landmark victory for the rule of law.”
“An activist judge in Washington, DC does not have the jurisdiction to seize control of President Trump’s authority to conduct foreign policy and keep the American people safe,” she wrote in a statement on X.
In her dissent, Sotomayor wrote that the government’s conduct throughout the case “poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law.”
“That a majority of this Court now rewards the Government for its behavior with discretionary equitable relief is indefensible,” she wrote. “We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2025-04-08 06:42:012025-04-11 15:02:06Supreme Court Allows Trump Admin To Deport Alleged Gang Members Under Wartime Authority
MAHA advocates are warning about a bill Georgia lawmakers passed in March that they allege would allow manufacturers of pesticides to escape liability for poisoning customers.
Senate Bill 144 would make it so “that a manufacturer cannot be held liable for failing to warn consumers of health risks above those required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency with respect to pesticides.”
Environmentalists and regenerative farming advocates warn that the bill would be detrimental to public health.
“Stripping our right to be able to sue if we have a different opinion than what the EPA has is really going to be catastrophic for public health, because then we have no recourse whatsoever,” Kelly Ryerson, the founder of American Regenerative and Glyphosate Facts, told the Daily Caller. Ryerson, a Stanford University MBA, has a certificate in public health policy from Stanford Business School.
The bill’s primary sponsor, Republican Georgia State Sen. Sam Watson, pushed back on the idea that the bill would prevent Americans from being able to sue manufacturers.
“It’s dealing with failure to warn, it’s not providing immunity,” Sen. Watson told the Caller. “It’s not preventing anyone to go after [manufacturers] because they thought that a product caused cancer. You can still do that, you just can’t do it for failure to warn of it causing cancer.”
Manufacturers that would be covered under Georgia’s bill include Bayer, who owns Monsanto, the maker of RoundUp. A Georgia jury is fresh off awarding a plaintiff over $2 billion in a judgement against Bayer after he blamed RoundUp for his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in a lawsuit.
Why did the Georgia State Legislature rush to pass SB144 aka The Pesticide Bill?
There are $2.1 BILLION reasons why!
Bayer was ordered to pay a plaintiff when they proved his cancer was caused by their pesticide (Round-Up).
RoundUp’s active ingredient is glyphosate, the most commonly used pesticide in the United States. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said glyphosate likely causes cancer in 2015, labelling it as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
“It says it’s likely and we saw that same report. It doesn’t say it does. It says that it suggests or it may be or probably or could cause,” Sen. Watson told the Caller.
The EPA reached a different conclusion. After a February 2020 review, the agency found “that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label,” according to its website.
The IARC was accused of manipulating their data in 2017. A draft document of IARC’s 2015 study was unearthed and, according to Reuters, showed the agency dismissed and edited out conclusions contrary to their final report.
Watson claimed that the study which the IARC based its carcinogenic conclusion on also found a number of other common American lifestyle choices increased the risk of cancer.
“If you’ll keep reading in that study it also says that red meat is carcinogenic and night shift work is carcinogenic and a lot of other things that people do are carcinogenic. So, I mean, you need to read the whole study because one studies shift and dictate,” Watson told the Caller.
While the EPA did not concur with the IARC’s conclusion that glyphosate is a carcinogen, Ryerson alleged that the research they based that conclusion on was manipulated by Bayer/Monsanto.
Wisner Baum, a law firm which Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once worked for, published a trove of documents that appeared to implicate Monsanto in ghostwriting a number of reports on glyphosate’s toxicity.
Science journal highlights Baum Hedlund’s work un-sealing and exposing the Monsanto Papers. “Scientific misconduct by private firms threatens the integrity of public science, and it threatens to undermine the public’s trust in science.” #ScienceEthicshttps://t.co/ww31mf94ZWpic.twitter.com/5ibdhgMreV
One email published by the firm allegedly shows that Monsanto commissioned scientist David Saltmiras and former Monsanto consultant Larry Keir to recruit respected names to write a review of glyphosate’s toxicity. “[E]ven though we feel confident that glyphosate is not genotoxic, this became a very difficult story to tell given all the complicated ‘noise’ out there,” the correspondence reads.
Keir’s name appears on the review that was eventually published, according to the documents obtained by Wisner Baum.
Other manufacturers that could benefit from the limited liability include Chinese chemical manufacturers. When ChemChina, a Chinese state-controlled chemical manufacturer, bought Swiss AgTech company Syngenta for $43 billion in 2017, it was forced by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to divest its rights to the company’s paraquat chemical business in the U.S. to an American firm.
However, China is still the primary producer of paraquat used in the U.S. while America is the world’s biggest importer, according to global shipping tracker Volza. The U.S. imports from 4,000 to 5,000 tons of the product annually, making up over 10 percent of China’s export supply, according to agropages.com
Like glyphosate, the EPA found “no dietary risks of concern associated with paraquat when it is used according to the label.” But others have called it “the deadliest chemical in US agriculture.”
National Institutes of Health (NIH) studies have linked the chemical to Parkinson’s disease, finding that people who used paraquat were 2.5 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s. Over 50 countries have banned its use, including China.
Sen. Watson, a vegetable farmer who uses RoundUp himself, argued it’s China’s very stranglehold over the paraquat market that makes SB 144 so necessary.
“If the Chinese become the only manufacturer of a product, you can’t go after them. It’s very difficult to go after a Chinese manufacturer for any kind of negligence claim,” he told the Caller.
“So I feel like they’re already protected, which makes it even more important to keep manufacturers in the United States because those are the ones that we can have recourse if they here in the United States.”
Ryerson disagreed. “I actually don’t care who manufactures it,” she said. “I just don’t want it anywhere in our system.”
Additionally, 99 percent of glyphosate used in the U.S. originated from China in 2024, according to a Farm Business Network survey.
You can’t make this up.
A German pharmaceutical company that helped Hitler during World War 2 (@Bayer) bought Monsanto and is now sending mailers in states saying lawmakers are pro-China if they don’t vote for a bill giving glyphosate legal immunity. https://t.co/6IbbIVD9Xe
The bill now sits on Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for him to sign. “Our office has 40 days following the last day of the legislative session to conduct a thorough review of legislation that received final passage by the Georgia General Assembly. We will make an announcement upon the conclusion of that review process,” a spokesperson for Kemp’s office told the Caller.
Georgia’s legislative session ended April 4, giving the governor until May 14 to make a decision.
The bill represents a test of power for RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition. Self-proclaimed “MAHA moms” have been lobbying hard against its passage, imploring Kemp not to sign it. RFK, who tried and won cases on behalf of Monsanto victims in his past life as an attorney, has yet to publicly comment on the bill.
The Daily Caller reached out to HHS to get Secretary Kennedy’s thoughts on the bill but did not receive a response.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2025-04-08 05:31:252025-04-08 05:54:55Georgia Bill Sparks MAHA Concerns About Alleged Chinese Poison Chemicals
One of the most insightful things I’ve read about pain is that it is an essential element of making us happy! (e.g., read this interesting article.)
Put in a simpler way: Contrast makes all the difference. A personal example is that one of my favorite meals is lobster. However, if I had lobster every night it wouldn’t take too long before it was no longer my favorite… Go figure…
What this also says is that pain is not just a physical sensation, but a mental one. In a particular situation, it is often difficult to assess how much of a very marked pain comes from physical nerve signals, vs how much is from our brain telling us that we are hurt.
A good example is when a child stubs their toe. If the mom is looking on anxiously, there is a strong chance that the child will start crying. On the other hand, if they are by themself, it is more likely that they will frown and grimace — and then move on.
I clearly remember a situation when I was in high school (around 15), and living at home. I was always in good physical condition (e.g., I ran track, played high school basketball, etc.), so I was rarely sick.
I don’t remember what led up to it, but one evening (before dinner) I started feeling nauseous. That was quite unusual, so I was expecting that this painfully unpleasant feeling would quickly pass.
It not only did not go away, but it got worse. I had the definite feeling that I was going to throw up shortly — very distressing. I skipped dinner (an extreme rarity), and went up to my room to lay down. I brought a pan and was waiting for the very unappealing inevitable.
I decided to listen to my radio. (My clock radio was a prized possession I earned by getting a lot of subscriptions for a local newspaper.) Anyway, when I turned it on, nothing happened. The clock part was still working, so what was going on? Being a mechanical wizard (still am), I started to fiddle around to solve the problem. It took me about 15 minutes to disassemble the radio, figure out, and fix the issue. The radio started to play.
As I lay down to listen I started to think why was I in bed at this time in the evening, and remembered that I was here due to feeling very sick. Oh, right. The strange thing was that the nauseous feeling was completely gone!
I couldn’t believe it and was sure that this respite was temporary and that the pain would come back. It didn’t! After laying there for 10+ minutes, and feeling fine, I decided that there was no need for me to be in bed at this time of day. I went downstairs, had a typical dinner(!), and continued on normally. The nauseous feeling did not return…
Yes, the basic strategy here was to use the worthwhile tactic of trying to take my mind off a painful matter by distracting myself. The differences here were:
a) I didn’t consciously try to do that, and
b) the pain wasn’t just disguised, it actually went away.
I have found that there are other life situations (that we all experience), where this mind-over-matter insight can be beneficial.
Another interesting perspective on pain is expressed here:
“One unique characteristic of life is that the more pleasure you hunt down (as we’re inclined to do), the more pain you get!
“Most everything that makes you feel amazing and alive, ends with long-term pain and an accelerated premature death. Take alcohol for example or junk food, narcotics, watching TV, drinking coffee, working that safe job you don’t enjoy, smoking cigarettes, smoking weed, procrastinating, being a perpetual people pleaser, being lazy, mindless scrolling of social media, thinking that a toxic big pharma pill will make you healthy instead of changing your lifestyle, etc., etc…”
So the next time you are inclined to complain about a pain, give it some Critical Thinking to see if it really is as bad as it seems, or maybe it’s a cloud with a silver lining…
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2025-04-06 08:51:092025-04-06 08:52:49Critically Thinking about Pain — Is Pain a Good or Bad Thing?
“Big Pharma is one of the largest and most profitable businesses in America, and in order to sell their chemical goods to allegedly treat the mind/psyche, pharmaceutical companies must convince society that people’s mental and behavioral problems are caused by their bodily chemicals.”
Daniel R. Berger, The Chemical Imbalance Delusion
An epidemic of mental illness has spread across the modern world. According to the National Institute for Mental Health, 25 percent of all American adults suffer from at least one mental illness, as do 15 percent of all children. Many in the field of psychiatry claim that psychiatric drugs are the most effective tool we have to counter this epidemic, and as a result, these drugs are heavily prescribed in the Western world. In this series of videos, we explore the lies and propaganda that are used to justify the use of psychiatric drugs, and we expose the deep corruption that exists at the heart of the unholy alliance of modern psychiatry and Big Pharma.
In this first video, we expose the “big lie” that supports the millions of psychiatric drug prescriptions written each year and the billions of dollars of profits that pharmaceutical companies earn from their sales. This lie is that chemical (or neurotransmitter) imbalances are a primary cause of mental illness, and that taking psychiatric drugs corrects for these imbalances.
“If a lie is only printed often enough, it becomes a quasi-truth, and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article of belief, a dogma…”
Isabella Blagden, The Crown of a Life
In the late 19th century, psychiatry suffered low status among the medical professions. There were few generally agreed upon treatments for mental illness, and while medical doctors were rapidly improving their capacity to understand and treat disorders of the body, psychiatry was relatively stagnant with respect to understanding the disorders of the mind.
The fate of psychiatry changed, however, when the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin put forth a bold and revolutionary theory. Kraepelin hypothesized that mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, are the result of underlying physical pathologies in the brain and body. Kraeplin’s theory caught on like wildfire as it aligned with materialism, the dominant scientific paradigm at the time. Materialism is a philosophical position which claims that matter is the primary, sole, and fundamental element of reality, and that our mind is an emergent property of, and reducible to, the interaction of the material parts of our brain.
In aligning psychiatry with the materialist position, and hence the scientific community at large, Kraeplin’s theory radically improved the status of psychiatry. Kraeplin became the founder of modern psychiatry, and the widespread acceptance of his theory ushered in a wave of experimental psychiatric treatments targeting the brain and bodily malfunctions believed to underly mental illness. In his book Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good, James Davies writes:
“In the 1920s, these [treatments] included…surgically removing parts of the patient’s body—their teeth, tonsils, colons, spleens, and uteri…injecting patients with horse serum, using carbon dioxide to induce convulsions and comas, injecting patients with cyanide, and giving them hypothermia…Another treatment was malaria therapy, injecting the patient with the malaria parasite in the hope that the high temperatures malaria produced would kill the virus then thought responsible for mental disease…many patients failed to recover from the malaria disease.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
The ineffectiveness of these early 20th century treatments did not stop psychiatrists from developing new experimental treatments. In the 1930s, insulin shock therapy was invented, which involved giving patients high doses of insulin that would trigger intense seizures and place the patient in a coma. Davies writes that:
“After this procedure, granted, patients would appear to feel calmer, but they would often show memory loss and other neurological abnormalities such as loss of speech. Five percent of all patients actually died from this treatment.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
In the 1940s, lobotomy, or the surgical removal of parts of the brain thought to be responsible for mental disorders, was invented. And by the 1970s one million people in the United States had been lobotomized. Another treatment which grew in popularity in the 1940s was electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, which involved adminstering electric shocks to the brain of a depressed patient in order to induce severe seizures. In the words of Davies, all these outlandish and barbaric treatments “won impetus and legitimacy from psychiatry’s enduring conviction that there must be a physical basis for mental disorder…this originated with Kraeplin’s assumption: if our emotional maladies are biologically caused, then the body is where our efforts must be directed.”(James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good)
After half a century of experimenting with psychiatric treatments that not only proved ineffective but often harmed, handicapped, or killed patients, the field of psychiatry faced a crisis. General medicine was advancing via revolutionary breakthroughs such as the first organ transplants and blood transfusions, as well as the discovery of antibiotics and insulin. Psychiatry, in contrast, had found little success within the materialist paradigm that dominated scientific discourse. This all changed in the 1950s with the development of the first generation of psychiatric drugs.
Prior to the 1950s, sedatives and stimulants were commonly prescribed in psychiatric institutions to subdue and control a psychotic or heavily depressed patient. However, psychiatrists were not publicly open regarding how they were using these drugs.
“Official reticence about the old drugs conveys the impression that they were a source of embarrassment.”
Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure
However, in the 1950s, after a new collection of psychiatric drugs were discovered, psychiatrists started to publicly embrace their use.
Chlorpromazine, the first neuroleptic or anti-psychotic which was marketed under the name Thorazine, was discovered when researchers, searching for anti-malarial drugs, discovered that chlorpromazine functioned as a “major tranquilizer” which induced in patients a “euphoric quietude…. Patients are calm and somnolent, with a relaxed and detached expression.” The first anxiolytic, or anti-anxiety drug, was a minor tranquilizer which was discovered by researchers searching for a drug to treat gram-negative microbes. While the first antidepressant was a psychological stimulant that was discovered by researchers searching for a drug treatment for tuberculosis. These discoveries initiated what is called the Psychopharmacological Revolution, and in the words of Moncrieff, these drugs “were greeted with immense enthusiasm, verging on zeal. One contemporary observer noted…that the atmosphere at conferences on the new drugs was akin to religious revivalist meetings… From this time on, textbooks started to cover drug treatments in detail and proclaimed their transformative effects.” (Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure)
Pharmaceutical companies realized that psychiatric drugs could be marketed and sold not only to institutionalized patients, but to the general public, and so they began investing heavily in the research and development of psychiatric drugs. In 1955, Wallace Laboratories brought meprobamate to the market, selling it under the name Miltown, and marketing it as a minor tranquilizer that could ease anxiety and worry. Following an extensive marketing campaign, demand for Miltown soared.
“The public rush to obtain this new drug was such that Wallace Laboratories and Carter Products, which were jointly selling meprobamate, struggled to keep up with the demand.”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
Following the success of Miltown, in 1963 the drug maker Hoffmann-La Roche brought Valium, the first benzodiazapene, to market. Valium was marketed primarily to anxious housewives and from 1965 to 1981 it was the best-selling drug in the West and the theme of the Rolling Stone’s song “Mother’s Little Helper”.
“In 1967, one in three American adults filled a prescription for a “psychoactive” medication, with total sales of such drugs reaching $692 million.”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
This first generation of psychiatry drugs were not only highly profitable for pharmaceutical companies, they also granted the field of psychiatry the status and legitimacy it had long been seeking. For as Joanna Moncrieff writes:
“[These first generation drugs] were an intervention on the body and as drug treatment grew in importance in other areas of medicine they confirmed the desired parallels between psychiatry and physical medicine.”
Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure
However, the success these drugs conferred on psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies was short-lived, as the public soon became aware that consuming these drugs produced negative side effects.
While Hoffman-La Roche claimed that Valium provided “pure anxiety relief” and was “safe, harmless and non-addicting”, many users reported physical dependence, terrible withdrawal effects, as well as insomnia, panic attacks, and heightened levels of anxiety. In 1975, the U.S. Justice Department classified benzodiazepines as schedule IV drugs under the Controlled Substance Act. Prescriptions for Valium, as well as other psychiatric drugs, plummeted, and a growing public awareness of the harmful nature of psychiatric drugs led to the development of an antipsychiatry movement.
The intellectual father of the antipsychiatry movement, Thomas Szasz, argued that psychiatrists were agents of social control and that the diagnosis and medication of the mentally ill was a way to subdue individuals who are reacting, in an undesirable manner, to life in a sick and oppressive society. In 1975, Szasz’s idea found legitimacy when a highly publicized government investigation into the use of neuroleptics in juvenile institutions was hijacked by ex-patients who testified that the drugs caused “excruciating pain” and turned them into “emotional zombies”. One patient said that such drugs “are used not to heal or help, but to torture and control. It is that simple.” This antipsychiatry movement reached popular consciousness via the Oscar winning movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which portrayed mental hospitals as facilities of torture and control.
The antipsychiatry movement, as well as the drop in the sales of psychiatric drugs, led the director of the American Psychiatric Association, Melvin Sabshin, to state in 1980 that “the profession is under severe siege.” A solution was needed to save psychiatry, as well as the profits of pharmaceutical companies. And a solution was found. Pharmaceutical scientists gave Emile Kraeplin’s theory a modern spin. They claimed that mental illness is caused by neurotransmitter imbalances in the brain, and that psychiatric drugs correct for such imbalances, fix a broken brain, and cure mental disorders. This idea became known as the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness. Regarding the researcher who is credited with popularizing this theory, James Davies writes:
“In the early 1960s, a young medical researcher…stumbled upon an idea that would launch a paradigm shift in psychiatry. The researcher was called Joseph Schildkraut, and the idea he advanced was rather simple: fluctuations in our moods may be due to chemical imbalances in our brains. To be sure, Schildkraut was not the first person to entertain this compelling idea. It had been floating around the psychiatric community in one form or another since the mid-1950s when the first antidepressants started to be used. But for some reason when Schildkraut published his hypothesis in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1965, his views took the community by storm.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Although Schildkraut admitted his theory was “at best a reductionist simplification” that could neither be rejected nor confirmed “on the basis of data currently available”, pharmaceutical scientists and psychiatrists ran with this theory and started to act as if it were true not only for depression, but for all mental disorders. Yet as they lacked hard evidence to support it, the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders was advanced through a line of reasoning that is illogic, unscientific, and bordering on absurd. For example, with respect to depression, pharmaceutical scientists identified how drugs to treat depression increased levels of norepinephrine and serotonin in the brain, and thus they claimed that depression is caused by low levels of norepinephrine and serotonin. Similarly, they noticed that neuroleptics, or antipsychotics, decreased dopamine transmission in the brain, and hence they proposed that schizophrenia is due to excessive levels of dopamine. Or as Robert Whitaker explains.
“This became the storytelling formula that was relied upon by pharmaceutical companies again and again: Researchers would identify the mechanism of action for a class of drugs, how the drugs either lowered or raised levels of a brain neurotransmitter, and soon the public would be told that people treated with those medications suffered from the opposite problem.”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
The following passage by the psychiatrist Robert Taylor hammers home just how absurd and pseudoscientific this line of reasoning is.
“In the absence of any real progress (in psychopharmacology), psychodrug makers have relied on marketing gimmicks. By far the most successful one portrays psychodrugs as treatment for specific chemical imbalances in the brain. Since psychodrugs alter brain chemicals, so the pitch goes, the conditions they target must be caused by chemical imbalances… A similar line of illogical reasoning would have us believe that aspirin deficiency causes headache, since when we take aspirin the headache gets better.”
Robert Taylor, Finding the Right Psychiatrist
Or as Joanna Moncrieff explains regarding the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders that took off in the 1970s.
“The drug companies were trying to capture that huge market of people who once took tranquilizers. But because the old model of how drugs work had been tarnished, they needed a new model to reassert their value and necessity. So now these drugs were cast as curing us rather than changing us. And that’s where the idea of the chemical imbalance came in. It was perfect because it implied that these drugs actually corrected a defect in the brain. If you have a brain disorder, a chemical imbalance, and this pill is going to correct that imbalance, then obviously you must take it… And this unthinking acceptance of the disease-centered view has dominated mainstream psychiatry for the last twenty or thirty years.”
Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure
To convince the public of the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders, one of the biggest propaganda campaigns in history was conducted. The major parties involved included the American Psychiatric Association, or APA, Big Pharma, the non-profit organization National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, as well as the National Institute of Mental Health, or NIMH. Or as Robert Whitaker writes:
“…a powerful quartet of voices came together during the 1980s eager to inform the public that mental disorders were brain diseases. Pharmaceutical companies provided the financial muscle. The APA and psychiatrists at top medical schools conferred intellectual legitimacy upon the enterprise. The NIMH put the government’s stamp of approval on the story. NAMI provided a moral authority. This was a coalition that could convince American society of almost anything…”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
This propaganda campaign initially focused on convincing the public that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. Depression was likely chosen as the initial target of this campaign because of the fact that most people experience depression at some point in life and so a massive market exists for drugs promoted as “antidepressant”. In 1984, the NIMH launched an educational program called Depression Awareness, Recognition, and Treatment, or DART, whose stated purpose was “to change public attitudes so that there is greater acceptance of depression as a disorder rather than a weakness.” The NIMH director Lewis Judd in 1990 unequivocally claimed:
“Two decades of research have shown that [psychiatric disorders] are diseases and illnesses like any other diseases and illnesses.”
Quoted in Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker
Newspapers, magazines, and books by renowned psychiatrists, were also used in this propaganda campaign. In 1989, New York magazine placed the antidepressant drug Prozac on its cover with the headline: “Bye, Bye Blues. A New Wonder Drug for Depression.” One year later Newsweek Magazine’s cover read: “Prozac: A Breakthrough for Depression.” In the same year, one of America’s most famous science writers at the time, Natalie Angier of the New York Times, wrote that antidepressants “work by restoring the balance of neurotransmitter activity in the brain, correcting an abnormal excess or inhibition of the electrochemical signals that control mood, thoughts, appetite, pain and other sensations.” In 1993, the Brown University psychiatrist Peter Kramer published the book Listening to Prozac, which spent 21 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and in which he stated that Prozac was making some patients “better than well” and ushering in a new era of “cosmetic psychopharmacology”.
The United States was not the only country to spread Big Pharma’s propaganda. The Royal Colleges of Psychiatrists in the UK set up a Defeat Depression Campaign, which was funded by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, the makers of Prozac.
“The campaign sought to persuade General Practitioners that they should diagnose more people as depressed and prescribe more antidepressants…The campaign also aimed to reduce the general public’s resistance to taking drugs for depression.”
Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure
In both the UK and America, these propaganda campaigns were enormously successful.
“This selling of depression, which was being done under the guise of a “public education” campaign, turned into one of the most effective marketing efforts ever devised.”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
Between 1992 and 2002, the number of prescriptions issued for antidepressants in the UK increased by 235%. In 1992 sales of Prozac in the United States reached $1 billion dollars. Pharmaceutical companies were swimming in profits, and patients flocked to psychiatrists to be told which chemical imbalance was responsible for their mental distress, and which drugs would fix their brain. The widespread acceptance of the chemical imbalance theory gave the field of psychiatry the legitimacy it was looking for, for as the psychiatrist David Healy explained, it “set the stage [for psychiatrists] to become real doctors.” Or as Robert Whitaker writes:
“Doctors in internal medicine had their antibiotics, and now psychiatrists could have their “anti-disease” pills too.”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
The problem with this public relations campaign is that the chemical imbalance theory that was sold to the public is false. It is a “big lie”.
“Many professionals and the public have been falsely convinced that biochemical imbalances in the brain drive mental suffering, such as the serotonin theory of depression or the dopamine theory of so-called schizophrenia. Yet the evidence for any biological basis for ‘‘psychiatric disorders’’ is utterly lacking.”
Peter Breggin, Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 2016
Or as the psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff echoes in the introduction to The Myth of the Chemical Cure:
“This book exposes the traditional view that psychiatric drugs target underlying diseases, or correct chemical imbalances, as fraud. It traces the emergence of this view and suggest that it was adopted not because there was any evidence to support it, but because it served the vested interest of the psychiatric profession, the pharmaceutical industry and the modern state.”
Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure
Some studies, funded by the pharmaceutical industry, have concluded that low serotonin levels are implicated in depression, which seems to suggest that drugs that raise these levels may improve depressive symptoms. But the methodology of these studies has been revealed as highly flawed, Moncrieff notes that “contradictory evidence has been overlooked or reframed as supportive”, follow up studies have found no connection between serotonin levels and depression, and meta-analyses of studies have further dispelled the myth that serotonin is implicated in depression. And as Johan Hari explains:
“If depression and anxiety are caused by a chemical imbalance, and antidepressants work by fixing that imbalance, then you have to account for something odd that [scientists] kept finding. Antidepressant drugs that increase serotonin in the brain have the same modest effect, in clinical trials, as drugs that reduce serotonin in the brain. And they have the same effect as drugs that increase another chemical, norepinephrine. And they have the same effect as drugs that increase another chemical, dopamine. In other words—no matter what chemical you tinker with, you get the same outcome.”
Johan Hari, Lost Connections
Or as Nassir Ghaemi, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Novartis Institute, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, explains:
“Our best-selling psychopharmacology textbook consists of pure speculations presented as pretty pictures . . . which we mistake for science. We have a huge amount of neurobiology research now to conclude that… neurotransmitter theories of psychopharmacology basically are false. The dopamine and [serotonin] hypotheses of schizophrenia and depression are wrong…”
Nassir Ghaemi, One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
One of the problems with studies that seek to prove the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness is that we possess no real understanding of how neurotransmitter levels influence or impact human experience. Furthermore, neurotransmitter levels in the brain are constantly fluctuating and there is no agreed upon standard of what constitutes healthy levels. As there is no known “normal” balance of neurotransmitters, there is no way to know what an imbalance would look like, and no way to test if a brain is chemically imbalanced. Or as professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University Hospital, David Kaiser, writes:
“Patients have been diagnosed with “chemical imbalances” despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim, and there is no real conception of what a correct balance would look like . . . . Yet conclusions such as “depression is a biochemical imbalance” are created out of nothing more than semantics and the wishful thinking of scientists/ psychiatrists and a public that will believe anything now that has the stamp of approval of medical science.”
David Kaiser, Commentary: Against Biological Psychiatry
While the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders is what the Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry Ronald Pies called an “urban legend”, this theory continues to be widely promoted as an undisputed truth by the psychiatric industry, big pharma, government agencies, and the mainstream media. For example, in 2005, the American Psychiatric Association stated that: “antidepressants may be prescribed to correct imbalances in the levels of chemicals in the brain.” While in 2019, Channon Hodge, a correspondent for CNN, which receives millions of dollars each month in advertising for Big Pharma, stated that:
“Researchers identified the chemical imbalances that correlate with problems such as depression, for example, and use treatments such as Prozac or Zoloft which block the reabsorption of serotonin so more of it can remain floating around in the brain. The more serotonin floating around, the happier we feel.”
Channon Hodge, CNN Online, April 4, 2019
In an article titled Psychiatry’s Incurable Hubris, the psychotherapist Gary Greenberg notes how the widespread acceptance of the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders has been an act of mass-deception perpetuated on an unsuspecting public.
“The chemical-imbalance theory…may fail as science, but as rhetoric it has turned out to be a wild success.”
Gary Greenberg, Psychiatry’s Incurable Hubris
Or as Joanna Moncrieff echoes:
“It appears that recent propaganda has been effective enough to persuade a large section of the population that their biochemistry is awry and that they need drug treatment to correct it.”
Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure
But if the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders is a big lie, and there is no known neurotransmitter imbalances for psychiatric drugs to fix, then what are psychiatric drugs doing to the brain and mind? In the next video, we examine this question.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Academy of Ideashttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAcademy of Ideas2025-04-05 06:40:212025-04-05 06:42:48Big Pharma and the Big Lie — The Chemical Imbalance Theory of Mental Illness
Several years ago, I found out that my family doctor was passing on information about me to the government. Behind my back.
My dcotor works closely with drug manufacturers, presumably for a generous commission.
So I already objected to my doctor’s methods, because I don’t trust Big Pharma. I trust in natural remedies, such as herbs.
I decided to unsubscribe from my doctor, and find another one.
Not much later, I found out that my family doctor reported this to a psychiatrist behind my back! The psychiatrist thought it was mentally disturbed of me to want to deregister from my regular doctor. It was made clear to me that this was not permitted.
Behind my back the Amsterdam Court was also informed that I had tried to deregister from my regular doctor. The Court also found this to be a sign of derangement.
I wonder now: are we still living in a free country? Surely a person should have the RIGHT to decide who his or her doctor is?
Another problem is that my family doctor can force me to take medications I don’t trust. My doctor swears by chemical medicines, and I only trust in natural medicines.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Matthys van Raaltenhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMatthys van Raalten2025-04-05 05:59:422025-04-05 06:00:26Netherlands: A Police State in the Making
Two congressional conservatives have introduced a bill that would give legal authorization for President Donald Trump to slash the federal workforce, stop harmful government programs, and even close entire executive departments without fear an activist judge will stop his money-saving reforms by judicial fiat.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) introduced the Reorganizing Government Act of 2025 in the House of Representatives (H.R. 1295), while Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the companion bill in the Senate (S.583). The bill would give the president a freer hand to shuffle, pare back, or eliminate tasks inside the federal bureaucracy until December 31, 2026.
“Americans elected [President Trump] to reform our government and drain the Swamp,” announced Lee Wednesday afternoon on X, retweeting a video of Comer’s appearance on “Washington Watch” originally posted by host Tony Perkins. “Our bill gives him even more tools to do so.”
The measure — which passed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s markup hearing on March 25 by a 23-20 party-line vote — further gives the president the authority to order “the elimination of operations determined to be unnecessary for the execution of constitutional duties.” The president may also act “to reduce the number of federal employees”; eliminate unnecessary and burdensome rules, regulations, and other requirements”; or close “executive departments” as necessary “to eliminate government operations that do not serve the public interest.”
“President Trump campaigned on reorganizing the federal government. We want to get rid of some agencies that have become obsolete. We want to return power and decision-making back to the states and local governments, especially with respect to education. And what my bill does will codify the law,” Comer told “Washington Watch” the day before the bill cleared committee. “It’s very important that this gets passed into law so that some judge doesn’t try to kick [President Trump’s plans] out — or the next administration, whoever that might be, doesn’t try to end the executive orders. We want this to be the law of the land. We believe that we have the votes in Congress to do that.”
The Trump administration’s foes have targeted the administration by filing lawsuits in liberal jurisdictions and then extracting national injunctions against the administration’s policies. The controversial tactic has led constitutionalists to call for the prudent use of judicial impeachments.
“We know that any member of Congress [who] would oppose this reorganization is opposing the mandate that President Trump received,” Comer assessed.
Presidents have a long history of receiving, or requesting, legislation to remake the federal workforce. “This type of presidential reorganization has been employed 16 different times between 1932 and 1981 and has been granted to nine presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon,” according to Deseret News, based in Lee’s home state of Utah. “Reagan was the last president granted the Congress-approved reorganization authority” in 1984, “and he used it to dismantle the Community Services Administration and change the U.S.”
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama requested authorization to reorganize the government without success.
“Between 1932 and 1984, presidents submitted more than 100 plans under this authority,” reported GovExec.com.
If the bill passes, President Trump would have to submit his plan for government reorganization for congressional approval within 90 days. However, the Senate would not be able to filibuster the plan, allowing its cost-saving efficiencies to clear the closely divided chamber with a majority vote, rather than the 60 votes necessary for cloture.
However, Senate Democrats can filibuster the Reorganizing Government Act itself, preventing it from reaching the Oval Office for President Trump’s signature.
“This legislation allows the president to use his constitutional authority as chief executive to reorganize federal agencies, eliminate weaponization, and right-size the government to better serve the American people. Congress cannot afford to sit on its hands in this fight,” insisted Senator Lee. “Reauthorizing presidential reorganization authority is the most comprehensive tool that the president can use to restore good governance to Washington.”
“With a federal budget that has grown from $3.6 billion to $7.3 trillion and over 400 executive agencies, streamlining government operations is essential for cost savings and improved service delivery,” announced the House Oversight Committee.
Despite the passing of the COVID lockdowns, Congress has continued record-breaking COVID-era levels of federal spending. The national debt now tops $36 trillion, and the government paid an unprecedented $1.2 trillion in interest on the debt alone.
“I don’t think anyone with any common sense would think that we can continue to spend $2 trillion a year more than we take in. We have to reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending,” said Comer. “We can do that by reducing the unneeded bureaucracies in America. And I think that that that’s what [The Reorganizing Government Act] will do. And hopefully, this bill has the blessing of President Trump and his entire Cabinet. It’s something that needs to happen.”
His colleague, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), has proposed one of the most ambitious proposals: cutting $2.5 trillion from the federal budget over 10 years. Comer lamented, “The Democrats think that you solve every problem in America by creating another government agency.”
Comer predicted, in the end, every competent member of the federal workforce would line up behind his legislative initiative. “If I were a federal employee who actually went to work every day and worked hard on the front lines, I would be applauding these changes,” said Comer. “We’re going to restore some common sense into some of the federal government decision-making that happens on the front lines in America every day.”
“I hope in the next two or three weeks it will be on the House floor,” Comer anticipated.
“You’ll see: There won’t be a single Democrat vote for it,” he said.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2025-04-02 12:36:152025-04-02 12:36:15New Bill Gives Trump the Legal Power to ‘Reform Our Government and Drain the Swamp’
What could possibly go wrong for the party of blue-haired, angry Marxists? They know they’re right. They know they’re righteous. They know their opponents are evil, racist fascists. So what if they’ve lost an election or two? They’re on the side of history, you benighted fools! To change course now would be to jump to the wrong side of history, and history hates when you do that! And so the Democrats have decided, after the American electorate decisively rejected the noxious stew they’re selling, to serve up more of the same.
Politico reported Friday that the Democratic National Committee held a major meeting not long after the Convicted Felon, the Emmanuel Goldstein of 2015-2025 (and counting), the focus of evil in the modern world, Orange Man Bad himself, took office again. The ostensible reason for the meeting was to vet candidates for the DNC leadership position, but it was really an opportunity for Democrat top dogs to do some soul-searching and decide which way their party would turn next.
The Democrat Party, whatever else it was, used to be adaptable to circumstances. In 1968, it went down to defeat with presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, who supported the war in Vietnam. As the war grew increasingly unpopular, the Democrats moved farther to the left (which is always easy for them) and nominated the antiwar Sen. George McGovern in 1972. When McGovern’s far-left candidacy went down in flames, the party moved back toward the center by going with southern Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.
All that, however, was a long, long time ago. Now the party of Andrew Jackson and FDR is in the grip of hardline leftist ideologues who seem to care more about adherence to the far-left line than about electoral viability. All the party’s old ability to adapt has been lost; to change course now would apparently make one a class traitor, or a racist, or a fascist, or whatever the left’s favorite term for those it fears and hates is these days.
Even Politico’s Holly Otterbein was disgusted, stating with startling frankness that the Democrats have become a parody of themselves, likening a moment early in the meeting when one DNC leadership candidate broke into song to “a scene from ‘Portlandia,’ a comedy satirizing ultra-liberals — and it was a punchline that was clipped and replayed across social media in the days ahead. Things only got more surreal, and viral, from there.”
The aspiring DNC leaders, Otterbein wrote, “inadvertently showcased the party’s self-absorbed tendencies that strategists argue have driven away swing voters, by turns fixating on identity politics, displaying scorn for large swaths of the electorate and failing to focus on the pocketbook concerns of ordinary Americans.” They never dared approach the topic of whether Kamala Harris had not run a perfect campaign. They likewise ignored the open border, skyrocketing inflation, and all the other issues that made voters want to throw the Dems out in the first place.
As is generally true at Marxist and neo-Marxist gatherings, ideological purity was strictly enforced. MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart asked the leadership candidates: “How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris’ defeat?” Each candidate raised his or her or xis hand, whereupon Capehart passed up an opportunity to call them all crazy and tell them that they needed to remove their ideological blinkers. Instead, he stated magisterially: “That’s good. You all pass.” Whew!
A DNC member asked the candidates: “Will you pledge to appoint more than one transgender person to an at-large seat?” Seven of the eight candidates readily affirmed that they would do so, and the eighth was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake. Okay, I’m exaggerating about that last part. But only a little.
The aspiring Democrat leaders also described Trump as a “fascist who espoused white supremacist conspiracies.” Telling half the country’s population that they’re evil people is hardly a winning strategy, and Politico climbed up onto a ledge of its own, despondently surveying the DNC leadership candidates and alleging that “the spectacle appalled many dyed-in-the-wool Democrats — and deepened the sense that party leaders were not up for the moment.”
Politico even quoted an anonymous “Democratic strategist” saying: “I don’t know if Dems realize how f**ked they are right now as a brand. It was a bunch of people politely discussing how many deck chairs on the Titanic should be reserved for transgender people.” For the sake of the continuing health of America as a free society, all free people must hope that this particular Titanic will continue to sink.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2025-04-01 05:09:112025-04-01 06:29:01The Party of Men Who Think They’re Women Decides to Stay the Course