Earlier this year the government notified 30 million Americans of cuts to their food stamps, at a time of steeply rising costs. Too bad we can’t afford to feed people. But hold on — military aid to Ukraine thus far equals an entire year of food stamps for 41 million Americans. People are going hungry to fund a war that doesn’t serve any vital U.S. interests. Most of the hungry are children and minorities. Time to reorder our priorities!
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All posts for the day May 13th, 2023
“Psychiatric treatment and psychiatric drugs are the common denominators of the growing number of shootings and other acts of violence, which are soaring right along with the soaring prescribing of psych drugs.”
If we want to stop the mass shootings, we need to strictly regulate the psychiatric medications that are causing them.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/drugged-up-ready-kill/5819075
By Mike Whitney
Global Research, May 12, 2023
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“Psychiatric treatment and psychiatric drugs are the common denominators of the growing number of shootings and other acts of violence, which are soaring right along with the soaring prescribing of psych drugs.” Killers on Psych Drugs
Here’s a question that every American should be able to answer: What percentage of the killers—that have carried out mass shootings across the United States—were on powerful psychiatric medications?
- a—1%
- b—25%
- c—50%
- d—75% or more
Why don’t we know the answer to this question? Doesn’t the United States have more mass shootings than any country in the world?
- Yes, it does.
And aren’t these shootings the source of great suffering and anxiety?
- Yes, they are.
And don’t most people genuinely want to know why these lone gunmen feel compelled to kill innocent people?
- Yes, they do.
Then, why don’t we know? Why—after more than two decades of these bloody incidents—do we still not have a definitive, thoroughly-researched answer to this one simple question: How many of these mentally-disturbed killers were on dangerous psychiatric medications?
Instead, the media pursues a line of inquiry that fails to reveal anything even remotely conclusive about the gunman’s actions. If “white supremacy” or “Nazi ideology” impacted the killer’s decision to go on a deadly shooting spree in Texas, then why didn’t he target a black community center or a Jewish synagogue? Wouldn’t that have been more consistent with his alleged ideology?
Yes, it would have been, which suggests that his alleged ideology is a symptom of his fragile mental condition not the primary factor driving his behavior. The reason these people go on crazed killing sprees is because they are ‘damaged goods’ not because they are ideologues. There’s a big difference.
So, why does the media keep harping on this silly the idea that the killer’s behavior was effected by his feelings about “white supremacy” or “Nazi ideology”? It’s ridiculous, after all, the killer was not white himself nor were his victims racially targeted. They were merely random passersby strolling through a shopping mall. In other words, there is no evidence to support the case that is being made by the media. But—here’s the thing—the media doesn’t care about evidence because their real goal is to advance a political agenda aimed at linking violent fanatical behavior to race-based uber-nationalism. What they are trying to do, is make a subliminal connection between the erratic behavior of a ruthless killer and the sincerely-felt patriotism of many Trump supporters. The media has been hammering away at this same theme for over six years culminating in the January 6 fraud. This is just the latest iteration of the same tedious political psy-ops.
If the journalists were serious about investigating this latest bloody incident, they’d try to find out whether the killer had been on the FBI’s radar before the onslaught took place. (as so many mass killers have been in the past.) Was he? Was Mauricio Garcia on the list of potential “domestic terrorists” compiled by the FBI?
We’ll probably never know, because that would expose the inner workings of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency which would undoubtedly cause considerable embarassment. So, the FBI is going to circle the wagons and make sure that never happens, which means that a good portion of the truth about this event will probably remain concealed forever. Even worse, we can expect that the media will continue to push their wacky theory that Garcia was a “non-white white supremacist” regardless of the fact that the claim makes no sense at all. Here’s how analyst Michael Tracey sarcastically summed it up:
If a non-white person is a “white supremacist,” does that mean he believes in his own innate racial inferiority? @mtracey
Leave it to Tracey to expose the imbecility of a meme that defies reason but to which the media clings like the Holy Grail. It’s actually shocking that anyone can take this type of verbal hucksterism seriously when, in fact, the whole “non-white white supremacist” thing is one of the most absurd concoctions of all time. It’s pure gibberish.
So, where should we look for answers? Where can we find rational explanations for these sporadic acts of violence?
There’s only one place we can look; at the mental state of the person who committed the crime. That’s where we have to start. If we want to understand what drives a man to kill random people in a school or shopping mall, we need to know something about the psychology of the perpetrator. Fortunately, volumes have been written on this subject by respected professionals who have researched the topic, studied the data, and drawn their own informed conclusions. Take a look:
Close to 17% of Americans are taking psychiatric drugs with side effects such as acting aggressively, being angry, or violent and acting on dangerous impulses...
Psychotropic drugs are hardly helping when their side-effects include worsening depression, new or worsening anxiety, agitation or restlessness, panic attacks, new or worsening irritability, acting aggressively, being angry, or violent, acting on dangerous impulses, an extreme increase in activity and talking (mania), and other unusual changes in behavior or mood.
“Rather than helping the individual, psychotropics alienate, and push them into more and more potentially dangerous behavior,” states the president of the Florida chapter of CCHR, Diane Stein.
This situation was so egregious that in 2004, the Federal Drug Administration issued a “black-box” label warning indicating that the use of certain antidepressants to treat major depressive disorder in adolescents may increase the risk of suicide, homicide, and other acts of violence.
A study entitled Prescription Drugs Associated with Reports of Violence Towards Others… declared … In the 69-month reporting period we identified 484 evaluable drugs that accounted for 780,169 serious adverse event reports of all kinds…. The violence cases included 387 reports of homicide, 404 physical assaults, 27 cases indicating physical abuse, 896 homicidal ideation reports, and 223 cases described as violence-related symptoms.” “Psychiatric Drugs and Side Effects – The Unseen Hand Behind Violence in America“, Citizens Commission on Human Rights
These are the victims of the Texas Mall Shooting
Guns and Drugs Don’t Mix: Psychiatric Medications and Violent Behavior
It all sounds very serious, doesn’t it? It sounds like something that policymakers should be aware of so they can tighten regulations on these potentially-lethal medications. It also sounds like something that pharmaceutical industry would try to keep out of the newspapers so people don’t see the connection between these drugs and the mayhem they produce. Simply put, the truth is being hidden for power and profits. What else is new? Here’s more background from another article:
A growing number of school shootings and other shooting rampages were committed by individuals under the influence of, or in withdrawal from, psychiatric drugs known to cause mania, psychosis, violence and even homicide. Consider this list of 13 massacres over the past decade or so, resulting in 54 dead and 105 wounded – and these are just the ones where the psychiatric drugs are known. In other cases, medical records were sealed or autopsy reports not made public or, in some cases, toxicology tests were either not done to test for psychiatric drugs or not disclosed to the public….
Given the growing list of shooters who were on psychiatric drugs, given the fact that 22 international drug regulatory agencies warn these drugs can cause violence, mania, psychosis, suicide and even homicide, and given the fact that a major study was just released confirming these drugs put people at greater risk of becoming violent, CCHR International asserts: “Any recommendation for more mental health ‘treatment,’ which [inevitably] means putting more people and more kids on these [psychiatric] drugs, is not only negligent but considering the possible repercussions, criminal.” (“The Real Lesson of Columbine: Psychiatric Drugs Induce Violence”
So, why aren’t we addressing the elephant in the room? Is there any doubt that the gunman at the Dallas-area shopping mall was mentally-unstable, probably had some history of counselling and treatment, and may have been on powerful psychiatric drugs? If you were a professional journalist, isn’t that where you would start your investigation rather than trying to cobble together some far-fetched theory based on photos of Nazi memorabilia on an isolated social media post?
We are told repeatedly by the media and the pundits on cable news that ‘guns are the problem’, but isn’t the case against powerful psychiatric meds equally compelling? It’s worth noting, that guns don’t fire themselves and that, typically, guns are not fired into crowds unless they are wielded by unstable, deranged people who—more often than not—have some traceable mental history in which they were diagnosed, counselled and treated. All we want to know is which medications they were prescribed so we can better monitor their use in order to protect the public. Unfortunately, the media is unwilling to provide this information due to a fundamental conflict of interest. They are paid by the drug companies. Here’s more from an article at the American Psychiatric Association:
A link between several types of psychotropic medications and violent behavior toward others has been documented in a recent study…
In a study published in the December 15, 2010… They found that during the study period, 780,169 serious adverse events of one kind or another had been reported for 484 drugs and that of those serious adverse events, 1,937 had been acts of violence. They defined a violent event as any case report containing one or more of the following items: homicide, physical assault, physical abuse, homicidal ideation, or violence-related symptom….
“In addition, antidepressant drugs showed consistently elevated risk, even when compared with antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. . . .”
Paul Fink, M.D., an expert in the study of violent behavior and a past APA president, commented. “I can tell you that as a psychiatrist who has practiced for a long time, I was unaware that [varenicline and antidepressants] had been linked with violence toward others. . . . Psychiatrists and mental health professionals need to be aware of this association.” The study had no outside funding.” Several Medications Linked to Violent Acts
Keep in mind, normal, well-adjusted men who are happily married and gainfully employed, do not commit random acts of homicidal violence. These are people who have serious psychological problems, who may have sought professional help, and who have (oftentimes) been prescribed various psychiatric medications.
These medications—while beneficial to many—can result in excessive violence in a small percentage of users. The public needs to know about these drugs so they can balance their benefits against the risks to public safety. So far, there has been no admission that these risks even exist. Instead, all the blame has been placed on guns which has merely fueled greater distrust of both the media and the political establisment. In fact, most gun owners now believe that the politicians are not interested in public safety at all but merely use it as platform for promoting their own narrow interests. Ostensibly, those interests now include the repeal the second amendment followed by the disarming of the American people. That’s the goal and most gun owners know that’s the goal. Here’s one last clip from a letter to the editor titled Psychiatric Drugs are Behind the Violence by Doug Dale:
As Congress, surrounded by armed guards, metal detectors, chain link fence and paramilitary forces, debates infringing on the constitutional right to bear arms by private citizens, isn’t it time they actually address the root cause of these mass killings?
These events were unheard of until the FDA began approving more psychiatric drugs several decades ago. From 2004 to 2009, researchers accessing the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System revealed that 1,537 cases of violence were linked to 31 different types of psychiatric drugs.
Other professional studies concluded that patients didn’t have homicidal ideation until after taking these drugs. From 1992 thru 2017, 37 school shootings have been linked to these medications. In a report submitted to the Senate in 2014, it was estimated that 90% of school shooters were using antidepressants. Obviously, it’s not a person’s mental health, but the drugs that cause this violence.
The pharmaceutical lobby contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to congressional members that craft federal laws. Who will deny that these drugs are the root cause of the mass killings? Will it be uneducated political groupies drinking the gun-control elixir, politicians taking campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical lobby, the pharmaceutical industry and/or the doctors peddling this poison to the public, and if so, why?…
In 2001, a drug manufacturer removed a cholesterol drug from the market because it was linked to 31 deaths. We are way past that number in mass killings.
Congress needs to ban gun ownership from anyone being prescribed these drugs, then, at the least, make it a federal crime to write new prescriptions going forward. To do otherwise, one can only conclude that Congress could care less about how much collateral damage they cause.
If we want to stop the mass shootings, we need to strictly regulate the psychiatric medications that are causing them.
*
This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
All images in this article are from TUR
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Mike Whitney, Global Research, 2023
Personally, I expect to see absolutely massive job losses over the next couple of years. And as the economy steadily deteriorates, the condition of our society will get even worse than it is right now. For many of you, that may be hard to believe, because things have already deteriorated quite dramatically.
May 12, 2023
This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.
How would you feel if a million Americans lost their jobs? Would you consider that to be a pretty catastrophic event for the economy? Well, as you will see below, even the Federal Reserve is projecting that more than a million Americans could lose their jobs in the months ahead.
Needless to say, Fed projections are usually wildly optimistic. So what will the real number be? Ultimately, I think that things are going to be far worse than most experts would dare to imagine right now. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs during the first three months of this year was 396 percent higher than the number of layoffs during the same period in 2022. A tremendous amount of negative momentum has been building up, and there is a whole lot of fear out there.
Fear of what could happen to PacWest drove their stock price 22 percent lower on Thursday. Overall, PacWest is now down close to 80 percent so far in 2023…
Shares of PacWest were under pressure once again Thursday after the struggling regional bank said that deposit outflows resumed in the first week of May.
The stock dropped 22.7%, further extending its recent declines. PacWest’s shares have now fallen more than 50% this month and nearly 80% for the year.
The only reason why PacWest’s stock price is falling so rapidly is because it is getting a lot of media attention.
If you look closely at the numbers, PacWest really isn’t that much different from hundreds of other regional banks that are essentially insolvent at this point.
As I keep telling my readers, when banks get into trouble they start getting really tight with their money, and this is already happening all over the country…
It was already difficult for businesses and households to borrow money earlier this year — but after the collapse of three US regional banks and a cascade of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, getting money has become a little harder.
More lenders have stiffened their standards in the wake of increasing turmoil within the banking sector, according to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) released Monday.
Survey respondents attributed the changes in lending standards to economic uncertainty, a reduced appetite for risk, deterioration in collateral values and broader concerns about banks’ funding costs and liquidity positions, according to the Fed report. Additionally, lenders reported that they expect to tighten standards across all loan categories for the remainder of this year, citing the above concerns as well as customer withdrawals.
If businesses and consumers have access to less credit, economic activity will slow down.
And as economic activity slows down, more businesses will get into trouble or fail completely.
And that is going to mean more layoffs.
In fact, initial claims for unemployment benefits just jumped to the highest level in nearly two years…
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week jumped to the highest level since 2021, the latest sign the historically tight labor market is cooling off in the face of rising interest rates.
Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show initial claims for the week ended May 6 surged by 22,000 to 264,000, well above the 2019 pre-pandemic average of 218,000 claims. It marks the steepest level for jobless claims since October 2021.
This was a very sharp rise.
According to Zero Hedge, it was actually “a 4-sigma miss to expectations”…
The print was a 4-sigma miss to expectations, and was above the highest forecast made by the 45 economists participating in the survey.
Ouch.
But this is just the beginning.
According to Fox Business, if current Fed projections are accurate more than a million Americans will soon lose their jobs…
The most recent projections from the Fed show that officials expect unemployment to rise to 4.6% by the end of next year, up from the current rate of 3.5%.
That could mean more than 1 million Americans lose their jobs between now and the end of the year.
Of course, many of us do not believe that the Fed’s projections will be accurate.
Personally, I expect to see absolutely massive job losses over the next couple of years.
And as the economy steadily deteriorates, the condition of our society will get even worse than it is right now.
For many of you, that may be hard to believe, because things have already deteriorated quite dramatically.
In San Francisco and other cities around the nation, organized retail looting now happens on an industrial scale. For example, just check out what is going on at a Target near San Francisco’s Union Square…
“I’d say 10 thefts a day,” said one worker at the Target inside the Metreon, a mall near San Francisco’s Union Square. The worker spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission from a supervisor to talk to the press.
“Every 10 minutes you see it,” another worker said who also did not wish to be named. “Look in some corner of the store, and you’ll see people shoveling stuff into a bag—food, cosmetics.”
We have never seen anything like this before, and this is why countless businesses have already left the city.
Another worker that was interviewed noted that lipstick and nail polish had just been stocked that morning “and now they’re empty”…
A third worker who also spoke on the condition they not be named said lipstick and nail polish, which are not locked behind plastic, are regularly stolen in handfuls.
“They were stocked this morning, and now they’re empty,” the worker said, pointing to an empty shelf reserved for lipstick.
Another worker said food and diapers are commonly stolen.
If this is how Americans are behaving now, while economic conditions are still at least somewhat stable, how will they behave when we are in the midst of a full-blown economic nightmare?
Our relatively strong economy has been the only thing that has kept our nation from descending into complete and utter chaos.
Once our economic strength is crippled, things are going to get really frightening.
So let us hope for the best, but let us also get prepared for the worst.
China put together a 12-point Ukraine peace plan in February, centered around the conflicting parties abandoning their “Cold War mentality” and recognition that the “security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others,” including by creating exclusive military blocs. The plan calls for an immediate halt in hostilities, the immediate resumption of talks, the resolution of the humanitarian crisis, protections for civilians and prisoners of war, and an end to unilateral sanctions.
CC BY 2.0 / Fabrice Debatty/Friends of Europe /
May 13, 2023
Ilya Tsukanov
All materialsWrite to the author
The EU’s top diplomat has spent the past year-and-a-half making hawkish statements about the Ukrainian crisis, demanding a military solution, rejecting Russia’s right to security guarantees, and saying he feels “more like the EU’s defense minister” than foreign minister. In March, he said China’s peace plan was “not sufficient” to end the crisis.
European Union high representative for foreign policy Josep Borrell fears China will succeed in its push to build its own “world order” no matter how the crisis in Ukraine wraps up and has urged the bloc to create its own “coherent strategy” toward Beijing independent of Washington’s.
“The China issue is more complex than the Russia issue,” Borrell wrote in a confidential letter to EU foreign ministers reportedly seen by UK business media. “China’s ambition is clearly to build a new world order with China in its center.”
Borrell claimed that even a “Russian defeat” in the ongoing proxy war with NATO in Ukraine “will not derail China’s trajectory,” and that Beijing would even “manage to take geopolitical advantage of it.”
Reversing course on comments made in March about the infeasibility of China’s 12-point Ukraine peace plan, Borrell urged Brussels to “engage seriously” with Beijing on the conflict, suggesting the EU will welcome “all genuinely positive moves coming from China aimed at finding a solution.”
The diplomat urged the EU not to try to “block the rising power of emerging countries,” indicating that the EU “must be aware that many countries see the geopolitical influence of China as a counterweight to the West and therefore to Europe,” and that “they will seek to strengthen their own room for maneuver without picking sides.”
Borrell’s unusually conciliatory tone marks a start contrast with remarks he’s made publicly about the crisis in Ukraine in recent days, weeks and months.
On Thursday, the senior diplomat announced that the EU had trained over 17,000 Ukrainian troops, and that the bloc hopes to train about 30,000 soldiers total by the end of the year. Borrell also boasted that the EU has spent over 16 billion euros ($17.5 billion US) assisting Ukraine, saying Brussels is “not finished” in this endeavor. Admitting that the crisis would end “immediately” if the EU stopped sending military support, Borrell stressed that “that is why we must continue helping Ukraine.”
Borrell: Ukraine Conflict Could End Immediately if West Stops Weapons Supply to Kiev
At the same time that he’s bashed Russia and pledged to continue supporting the US and NATO hardline in Ukraine, to the point of being ready to empty out the EU’s ammunition stockpiles, Borrell has sought to soft talk China, saying recently that Europe does “not fear China’s rise,” and that “the history of tomorrow’s world will also depend on how China uses its power.” Last week, the diplomat reiterated calls for Brussels to develop its “own way of facing China.”
China put together a 12-point Ukraine peace plan in February, centered around the conflicting parties abandoning their “Cold War mentality” and recognition that the “security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others,” including by creating exclusive military blocs. The plan calls for an immediate halt in hostilities, the immediate resumption of talks, the resolution of the humanitarian crisis, protections for civilians and prisoners of war, and an end to unilateral sanctions.
The United States immediately dismissed China’s proposals, with President Biden claiming it can’t be “any good” if Russian President Vladimir Putin is “applauding it.” European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen accused China of taking “Russia’s side,” and called the peace plan “misplaced.” Putin said the Chinese proposal could be a basis for a settlement, and accused the West of seeking to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”
The EU has paid a heavy price for its full-throated support for the US-led proxy conflict in Ukraine, with the bloc hanging on the brink of a recession, and facing long-term damage including deindustrialization as major companies seek to relocate to countries where energy is cheaper.
The spike in energy costs comes amid Brussels’ push to restrict the purchase of Russian energy. Along with higher energy costs, the crisis has resulted in galloping, double-digit inflation in many EU countries. Earlier this year, a German Chambers of Industry and Commerce report calculated that Germany alone will lose up to 160 billion euros ($171 billion), or 4 percent of its GDP, in growth by the end of the current year thanks to the crisis.
Western Inflation: Self-Inflicted Problem With No End in Sight
Yesterday
https://tass.com/politics/1616847
May 13, 2023
“He emphasized this means a considerable escalation of the conflict and an expansion of the military operations area,” the embassy said in the statement, referring to Andrey Kelin
LONDON, May 12. /TASS/. The UK gave Kiev long-range Storm Shadow missiles for strike on Russian cities including in Crimea, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin has said.
He made the statement when addressing members of the Russian Club of Oxford, which was established in 1906, and the Russian embassy sent a statement about his remarks to TASS on Friday.
“He emphasized this means a considerable escalation of the conflict and an expansion of the military operations area,” the embassy said in the statement, referring to Kelin. “It has been noted that Western countries used to be cautious enough to avoid sending Kiev weapons like this.”
“It’s obvious for us that London made this step to enable Kiev to strike Russian cities and villages, including the territory of Crimea,” the statement went on to say. “We regret that the UK, which has nothing to do with this conflict, nevertheless plays a leading role in extending and escalating it.”