Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in April, Matt Walsh dismantles the ADHD scam.
***
At the risk of angering all the people who will scream from the rooftops that “correlation doesn’t equal causation,” like it’s some kind of Scriptural edict, here’s some data that’s worth considering. From 1980 to 2020, the share of male teachers, in both elementary and middle schools, declined from 40% to less than 20%. Men have mostly stopped teaching young children in school. And during this same period, as men have abandoned elementary schools, there’s coincidentally been another major change in childhood education: Everyone’s being diagnosed with ADHD.
More than 21% of 14-year-old boys in this country now supposedly suffer from this condition. The number goes up to 23% for 17-year-old boys. As a result, prescriptions for drugs like Ritalin and Adderall have skyrocketed. From 2012 to 2022, the total number of prescriptions for stimulants to treat ADHD increased dramatically by nearly 60%. Boys between the ages of 10 to 14 were the demographic that saw the highest increase in these prescriptions.
For decades, you’ve been instructed to believe there’s no significance to this correlation whatsoever. As women increasingly enter the workforce and replace men in teaching jobs, we’re not supposed to draw any conclusions about how the behavior of male children is now being addressed. The truth, we’ve been told, is not that a feminized education system has increasingly punished normal male behavior it doesn’t understand. It’s not that schools have lost their capacity to educate male students. It’s not that smartphone use and electronics in general have become distractions teachers have been unable to control.
Instead, we’ve been led to believe that, in truth, boys have suddenly become afflicted with a severe psychological disorder. There’s no objective, biologically-based test for this disorder, nor can anyone point to a specific gene or pathogen that might cause it. But the scientific consensus, for many years now, has nevertheless been clear: ADHD, they’ve said again and again, is real. And the way to treat it is to give children “speed,” in the form of drugs like Ritalin.
As I’ve said repeatedly, for over a decade, the science behind the theory of ADHD isn’t simply underbaked or inadequate. It’s comically useless, to the point that it’s obviously fraudulent. To give just one of many examples, a few years ago, researchers at the University of Central Florida conducted a grand experiment where they put a child in front of a computer. Here’s what it looked like:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="ADHD Study" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/167se17RNHw?feature=oembed" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe>
The researchers showed a child two separate videos. One of the videos was about mathematics, and it involved a teacher talking about basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication. The other video was the pod-racing scene from “Star Wars.” And, as you can see from the videos, the child became bored during the math lecture. He starts spinning in his chair and fidgeting. On the other hand, when the child is shown something more engaging, he suddenly stops fidgeting. He’s actually paying attention to “Star Wars.”
Unless you’re an alien who’s never interacted with a child, and was never a child yourself, there is nothing remotely interesting or surprising about this footage. It’s exactly what you’d expect a normal, healthy child to do. But in the academic world, which exists to sell pharmaceuticals to children, this was a groundbreaking experiment. The footage was the basis for a peer-reviewed article in the“Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.”
The University of Central Florida bragged about their findings with this headline: “ADHD Kids Can Be Still – If They’re Not Straining Their Brains.” Their conclusion was that ADHD is a nefarious disorder that’s only triggered by “cognitively demanding tasks,” and that we need to be vigilant of ADHD whenever children have to use their brains in specific ways.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1576-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
In reality, of course, the University of Central Florida had simply discovered the concept of “boredom.” That’s all they accomplished. It’d be like discovering that children prefer ice cream to broccoli, and then announcing you’ve identified a major new psychiatric disorder. It’s exactly like doing a study to discover that children are more excited about opening presents on Christmas than they are about doing their chores, and then concluding that there must be some previously undetected mental illness infecting every child on Earth.
Multiply this garbage study by about ten million, and you get the sum and substance of “ADHD research” over the past few decades. None of it is legitimate. As a result, we’ve all been waiting for the moment when, at long last, the medical establishment and mainstream media will finally acknowledge that none of this science is legitimate — because when that happens, millions of children will be spared these damaging and grossly unnecessary ADHD drugs.
This week that moment has belatedly arrived.
The New York Times Magazine has just published a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lengthy article</a> entitled: “Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong?”
It’s important to note, at the outset, that this article is not the result of some new discovery in the field of ADHD. There hasn’t been any new, groundbreaking research. Instead, the piece is a collection of existing studies about ADHD — some of them dating back more than a decade — along with testimony from researchers who, in the past, were some of the leading voices promoting ADHD medications. Now these researchers would like you to know that they’ve changed their minds because, after thinking about things for a while, they realize they were completely wrong.
The article opens by discussing a researcher named James Swanson, who conducted a famous experiment in the 1990s that tracked three groups of students over a long period of time. One group of students received drugs for their alleged ADHD. Another group received “behavioral training.” And a third group didn’t receive any kind of treatment. After a little over a year, the study supposedly showed that the kids who received Ritalin were doing a lot better than any other group. This study immediately became a major national news story. It was sold as proof that Ritalin works and that ADHD is real. And researchers like Swanson became highly-paid consultants for the pharmaceutical industry, shilling ADHD drugs. So everyone was happy. This is in spite of the fact that, even if the drugs really did improve a child’s behavior or academic performance, that in and of itself doesn’t prove that he has a disorder. Steroids improve athletic performance, but that doesn’t mean that a child who lacks athletic skill is disordered. Just because a drug enhances performance doesn’t make it a legitimate medication. But, it turns out, these drugs don’t even do that much.
As the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now admits</a>, the researchers understood very quickly that their narrative was false:
<blockquote>As time passed, Swanson began to grow uneasy. He and his colleagues were continuing to follow the almost 600 children in the M.T.A. study, and by the mid-2000s, they realized that the new data they were collecting was telling a different — and less hopeful — story than the one they initially reported. It was still true that after 14 months of treatment, the children taking Ritalin behaved better than those in the other groups. But by 36 months, that advantage had faded completely, and children in every group, including the comparison group, displayed exactly the same level of symptoms. Swanson is now 80 and close to the end of his career, and when he talks about his life’s work, he sounds troubled — not just about the M.T.A. results but about the state of the A.D.H.D. field in general. ‘There are things about the way we do this work,” he told me, ‘that just are definitely wrong.’</blockquote>
In other words, now that he’s 80, this researcher — who played a vital role in the mass-prescribing of ADHD drugs — has no problem going on the record and explaining that the so-called “science” on ADHD is essentially meaningless.
In the end, we’re not correcting any kind of disorder in the brain. We’re not providing a long-term solution to a medical problem. We’re just giving children amphetamines, which have the predictable effect of artificially stimulating their brains so that they seem less bored — while introducing a whole host of catastrophic side effects that we’ll discuss in a moment. And like all drug highs, eventually it stops working, and reality sets in.
The “top scientists” are all admitting this now. It’s not just James Swanson who’s recanting his old research on ADHD. For example, in 2017, a Dutch neuroscientist named Martine Hoogman announced that she had discovered evidence confirming that ADHD is a real, observable disorder that’s reflected in human biology.
She stated at the time:
<blockquote>We confirm, with high-powered analysis, that patients with A.D.H.D. have altered brains; therefore A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain.</blockquote>
That’s what this researcher found with her “high-powered analysis” less than a decade ago. That was her statement. But now, this same neuroscientist is admitting that her data showed something completely different. This is again from the reporter who wrote this week’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Times article</a>:
<blockquote>When I interviewed Hoogman by email recently, I was surprised to learn that she now wishes she could have revised that statement. ‘Back then, we emphasized the differences that we found (although small), but you can also conclude that the sub-cortical and cortical volumes of people with A.D.H.D. and those without A.D.H.D. are almost identical,’ she wrote. In retrospect, she added, it wasn’t fitting to conclude from her findings that A.D.H.D. is a brain disorder. ‘The A.D.H.D. neurobiology is so much more complex than that.’</blockquote>
So here we have a leading “expert” who claimed, in 2017, that her research proved that ADHD alters the brains. And now, via email with a New York Times reporter, she casually admits that her research showed that the brains of people who are diagnosed with ADHD are “almost identical” to everyone else. To call this a walkback would be a massive understatement. These people are completely abandoning everything they’ve been saying with absolute certainty. And yet their research is still used by believers in ADHD to support their theory — even though the actual researchers themselves no longer stand by it.
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To be clear, it wasn’t just this one scientist. Dozens of leading “experts” pushed the idea that ADHD is a symptom of observable, physical issues in the brain. They even published a consensus statement claiming that a single gene caused ADHD, and that ADHD patients had less brain matter and less electrical activity in their brain. None of this was actually true. When they ran experiments to prove this was true, they got the opposite result — but they pretended otherwise at the time. That’s what this Dutch scientist is now admitting to.
It’s impossible to measure the full extent of the damage that’s been done to millions of young children as a result of this fraud.
Here’s just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one metric</a>, citing the MTA Study:
<blockquote>Children who took Ritalin for an extended period grew less quickly than the non-medicated children did. By the end of those 36 months, subjects who had consistently taken stimulant medication were, on average, more than an inch shorter than the ones who had never received medication. Many of the scientists in the M.T.A. group assumed that this height suppression in childhood would be temporary — that the shorter children would catch up during adolescence — but when data was collected again nine years after the initial experiment, the height gap remained. … Amphetamines can be powerfully addictive, and last year, a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry found that even a medium-strength daily dose of Adderall more than tripled a patient’s likelihood of developing psychosis or mania.</blockquote>
Yes, we have drastically increased the risk of permanently destroying children’s brains and bodies based entirely on junk science. And that’s just what The New York Times is willing to admit now. Give them another 20 years, and they’ll tell you all about the effects that amphetamines have on the heart, as well. All of this data already exists, of course. They’re just refusing to tell you about it.
To be fair, there is one study that the Times cites that’s actually recent. Here’s the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">groundbreaking insight</a> that the new “MTA” study has uncovered:
<blockquote>Last October, the M.T.A. group published a new study that explored how A.D.H.D. symptoms in M.T.A. participants changed over the course of their childhood and young adulthood. In contrast to the categorical model of A.D.H.D. — you either have it or you don’t — the researchers showed that for most subjects, their symptoms and level of impairment in fact fluctuated over the years, often quite substantially. Only about 11 percent of the children who entered the study with an A.D.H.D. diagnosis experienced the symptoms consistently year after year.</blockquote>
This is something you don’t need an “MTA group” or a controlled, high-budget study to realize. Any parent could have told you this. Anyone with common sense could have told you this.
Everyone — whether they have children or not — intuitively understands that children go through phases. We don’t need to administer psychoactive drugs every time they go through a phase we don’t like. And we all know that it didn’t really take decades for leading scientific experts to come to this conclusion. They knew it all along. But they had a financial incentive to say otherwise. Only now that the situation has devolved into total absurdity — now that we’re supposed to pretend that 25% of teenagers suffer from this diagnosis — are some of these experts finally telling the truth.
They’re also finally admitting that, in reality, the cure for ADHD is simply doing things that are interesting. That’s it. It turns out that, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the Times</a>, ADHD patients suddenly lost their symptoms when they started doing things that actually interested them:
<blockquote>A hairstylist told the researchers that her inability to concentrate in school vanished when she began studying hair.. … A young man who was training to be an auto technician said that in his new career, his A.D.H.D. was no longer an issue. … Patients’ symptoms tended to improve, rather than worsen, during times of higher ‘environmental demands’ — periods of more responsibility and busier schedules. … Jobs or college courses that were demanding and interesting helped alleviate their symptoms. And as their symptoms lifted, they changed the way they thought about themselves.</blockquote>
Imagine that. It turns out that people become bored when you talk to them about something they’re not interested in. And they become more engaged when you talk about things they find interesting. This is the cutting edge of the science on ADHD medication. They’re figuring out things that anyone with ten brain cells could have told you a long time ago. I have gone through this myself. I was a terrible student in school. I could have easily been diagnosed with ADHD if my parents wanted to go that route, which, thankfully, they didn’t. But even though I couldn’t complete a school assignment to save my life, now, as an adult, I write the word count equivalent of two or three chapters of a book every single week while preparing for my show. I also read all the time and enjoy learning new things. What accounts for the change? Did my “ADHD” wear off? No, for one thing, I grew older and became more mature and more disciplined. For another thing, I enjoy what I do now and I’m interested in it. It’s not that complicated. But the medical field has treated it that way for decades.
This whole thing has obviously become something of a pattern in the field of modern medicine. In the last few years we’ve learned — or at least, the people who hadn’t been paying close attention learned — that the chemical imbalance theory of depression was a lie, gender affirming care was a lie, the claim about how lockdowns wouldn’t hurt children was a lie, and now ADHD is a lie. At this point, you have to ask: Why would anyone trust the psychiatric industry ever again? These are not lies of little consequence. Millions of people, especially children, have been hurt.
The only winner in this process, as always, has been the pharmaceutical industry, which has convinced millions of parents to buy their drugs and medicalize a completely normal part of the human condition. These are all points that some of us have been making for years, even decades. We were shouted down as science deniers. Now we get the inevitable missive in some corporate media outlet unceremoniously announcing that the people they defamed and insulted were actually right all along.
That’s what this New York Times article amounts to. I get no pleasure out of reporting on it. I find it infuriating. All you can do, going forward, is to treat the self-described experts in the field of psychiatry with maximum contempt and skepticism, especially when they’re trying to convince you to drug yourself or your child. Just be prepared for the inevitable backlash that will follow when you don’t go along with the next wonder drug they’re pushing for you or your child. First, they’ll call you a science denier. Then, they’ll try to censor you on social media. And then, many years later, without giving away a dime of the money they’ve made from their fraud or suffering any consequences whatsoever, they’ll tell The New York Times that you were right all along.

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Best Of 2025: The ‘Experts’ Are Finally Admitting That ADHD Is A Scam

Children

Matt Walsh

Mental Illness

Seattle’s incoming mayor, Katie Wilson, will inherit a homelessness crisis that will define her ability to lead.
Seattle’s homeless population needs more than another round of aspirational promises. They need and deserve an operational reset grounded in compassion, accountability, and the courage to confront realities the city has failed to address for years.
She must replace press releases and ceremonial groundbreakings for housing that may never materialize with programs that support the homeless in reclaiming their lives from the grip of untreated mental illness, addiction, and dangerous encampments that have taken root throughout the city.
The scale of Seattle’s crisis is staggering. HUD’s 2024 Point-in-Time count identified <a href="https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Point-in-Time-Count-2024_King-County_final.pdf">16,868 people struggling with homelessness in King County</a> — 7,058 sheltered and 9,810 unsheltered — yet even this understates the emergency. It omits the thousands of K-12 students and their families couch-surfing or scraping together money for a few nights in a motel. And at the current 23% growth rate, Mayor Wilson will walk into office confronting a humanitarian emergency approaching 22,500 people.
Meanwhile, encampments proliferate, fentanyl deaths continue at historic highs, and families, businesses, and public workers bear the daily trauma of a system that is not working.
For years, Seattle has clung to the comforting illusion that more subsidized housing units alone will solve homelessness. Despite billions in public spending, housing pipelines remain clogged, construction timelines stretch into decades, and operating costs soar.
But for the majority of those living unsheltered — 78% of whom are struggling with serious mental illness or addiction — homelessness is not merely a housing shortage. It is the downstream consequence of untreated disease.
Often further complicating their illnesses is a condition called anosognosia that prevents them from recognizing their own illness. Consequently, they decline help not because they choose the street, but because their minds cannot see another path.
The mayor must change this trajectory.
If she intends to succeed where past administrations have failed, she must look to the <a href="https://www.discovery.org/m/securepdfs/2025/11/Local-Jurisdictions-Leverage-Homelessness-Reforms.pdf">Discovery Institute’s new report</a>, which details exactly how cities can harness forthcoming federal reforms to drive real results. 
Her reset must include:
<h3>1. Prioritize transitional and treatment-based recovery models</h3>
Seattle must stop investing disproportionately in permanent supportive housing that takes years to build and rarely addresses root causes. It must instead prioritize transitional recovery housing that is staffed with clinicians, case managers, and vocational supports, and must require engagement in these services as a condition of stay.
<h3>2. Partner with high-performing recovery organizations</h3>
Non-profits such as We Heart Seattle and Union Gospel Mission Rescue Missions have a great track record in helping individuals transition to stability. These organizations know how to walk with people through trauma, detoxification, relapse, and rebuilding. Make these organizations central to the city’s strategy — not an afterthought.
<h3>3. Empower and deploy multidisciplinary “CARE+” outreach units</h3>
Combine mental health professionals, emergency responders, and trained law enforcement to intervene proactively, stabilize crises, and compel psychiatric or addiction evaluations when individuals pose clear risks to themselves or others. Washington’s Involuntary Treatment Act already provides necessary tools, but they must be used more consistently and, of course, humanely.
<h3>4. Enforce public health and safety laws to restore order while providing pathways to treatment</h3>
In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court affirmed that Seattle can ban public camping to restore order and safety for all residents. In tandem with this effort, the city must provide the homeless with restorative programs.
<h3>5. Demand performance, not platitudes, at every level of the system</h3>
Seattle must instill accountability at every level of the homeless system: from the individual, to the non-profit, to the government officials responsible for the homeless system.
It must measure outcomes and provide quarterly dashboards on those outcomes and the spending required to achieve those outcomes. Housing without treatment is a revolving door. Harm reduction without recovery is slow-motion abandonment. But it doesn’t have to stay this way.
Katie, you have the chance to lead Seattle into a future where compassion is not a slogan, but a force that restores people and the city they call home.
This is your moment. History will remember the mayor who chose courage over habit, transformation over stagnation. Seattle’s soul is waiting to be mended. Now is the time to lead the city there.
* * *
Michele Steeb is the founder of Free Up Foundation and author of “Answers Behind the RED DOOR: Battling the Homeless Epidemic,” based on her 13 years as CEO of Northern California’s largest program for homeless women and children. She is a Visiting Fellow with the Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness Initiative. Follow them on Twitter: @SteebMichele and @DiscoveryCWP.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
Right now, DailyWire+ annual memberships are fifty percent off during our Black Friday sale. Join now at <a href="http://dailywire.com/blackfriday">dailywire.com/blackfriday</a>.

Seattle Street with Homeless Encampment and Space Needle

‘Humanitarian Emergency’: Seattle’s New Mayor Must Bring An End To The City’s Homelessness Crisis

'Humanitarian Emergency': Seattle's New Mayor Must Bring An End To The City's Homelessness Crisis

Democratic Socialism

Homelessness

Leftists

Opinion

Seattle

Washington State

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt roasted Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) from the briefing room on Thursday, mocking her over her recent suggestion that President Donald Trump&#8217;s supporters suffered from mental illness.
Leavitt laid into the Texas Democrat in response to a question from The Daily Wire&#8217;s own Mary Margaret Olohan, who mentioned Crockett&#8217;s comments: &#8220;She said Trump supporters are &#8216;mentally ill&#8217; before calling for bipartisan support against the president. Can you respond to that, especially since she&#8217;s a rising star in the Democratic Party right now?&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Karoline Leavitt and <a href="https://twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MaryMargOlohan</a> rip into Jasmine Crockett:
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s incredibly derogatory to accuse nearly 80 million Americans of mental illness. Last time I checked, Jasmine Crockett couldn&#8217;t dream of winning such a majority of the public.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/mJCftlHdDh">pic.twitter.com/mJCftlHdDh</a>
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) <a href="https://twitter.com/theMRC/status/1935757318915838206?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;She is a rising star,&#8221; Leavitt responded with a smile. &#8220;It&#8217;s quite something to behold, actually. I hope that she continues to be a rising star, for the Republican Party at least.&#8221;
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s incredibly derogatory to accuse nearly 80 million Americans of mental illness. Last time I checked, Jasmine Crockett couldn&#8217;t dream of winning such a majority of the public as President Trump did,&#8221; Leavitt continued. &#8220;And the America First movement, which President Trump has built, is filled with hard-working patriots, forgotten men and women, business owners, law enforcement officers, nurses, and teachers, and middle America, as we all know, from where you all grew up outside of this beltway.&#8221;
&#8220;That&#8217;s who makes up this president&#8217;s movement, and Jasmine Crockett should go to a Trump call sometime and she can see it for herself,&#8221; Leavitt added.
Crockett raised eyebrows when she told Katie Couric, on her &#8220;Next Question&#8221; podcast, that widespread support for President Trump was essentially proof positive that the United States was dealing with a &#8220;mental health crisis.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve got a mental health crisis in this country because everyone — no matter how you affiliate yourself — should be against Trump. Period. This is not partisan for me. Like, I would give anything to have — sad to say — George Bush. Like, give me any regular Republican nowadays, and I would be happy,&#8221; Crockett said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how far he has to go before we can come together and just say, &#8216;Enough is enough.&#8217; Like, this should not be partisanship.&#8221;

Karoline Leavitt

Karoline Leavitt Roasts Jasmine Crockett In Press Room: ‘I Hope She Continues To Be A Rising Star’

Karoline Leavitt Roasts Jasmine Crockett In Press Room: 'I Hope She Continues To Be A Rising Star'

Donald Trump

Executive

Jasmine Crockett

Politics

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) claimed that President Donald Trump&#8217;s supporters were &#8220;mentally ill&#8221; — and then demanded bipartisan opposition to Trump — during her recent appearance on Katie Couric&#8217;s &#8220;Next Question&#8221; podcast.
Crockett told Couric that she would be happy to have any &#8220;regular&#8221; Republican — naming George Bush, but not saying whether she meant George H.W. Bush (41) or George W. Bush (43) — and said that Trump&#8217;s political success was essentially proof that there was a &#8220;mental health crisis&#8221; in the United States.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨NEW: Jasmine Crockett calls Trump supporters *MENTALLY ILL* — then immediately calls for bipartisanship🚨
&#8220;This idea that we don&#8217;t care how many people get hurt, we don&#8217;t care how we prostitute our service members — you know, thinking that you have your own special little army… <a href="https://t.co/puAcojbTZJ">pic.twitter.com/puAcojbTZJ</a>
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/1935693487569068538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
During the podcast, Crockett lashed out at the president over the U.S. Army 250th birthday celebration and parade, suggesting, as many Democrats have, that the parade was not really for the Army, but for Trump&#8217;s birthday.
&#8220;This idea that we don&#8217;t care how many people get hurt, we don&#8217;t care how we prostitute our service members — you know, thinking that you have your own special little army that&#8217;s for you &#8230; it is sick. It is really sick. And anybody that supports it is also sick,&#8221; Crockett claimed.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve got a mental health crisis in this country because everyone — no matter how you affiliate yourself — should be against Trump. Period,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;This is not partisan for me. Like, I would give anything to have — sad to say — George Bush. Like, give me any regular Republican nowadays, and I would be happy.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how far he has to go before we can come together and just say, &#8216;Enough is enough.&#8217; Like, this should not be partisanship,&#8221; she concluded.
During the same appearance, she claimed that former Vice President Kamala Harris — who lost to President Trump in rather spectacular fashion — had been far more qualified to serve as president, arguing that Americans were simply too racist and sexist to vote for her and instead went with the &#8220;old white man.&#8221;

House Oversight And Accountability Members And Watchdog Group Court Accountability Focus On Supreme Court Ethics

Texas Democrat Slams Trump Supporters As ‘Mentally Ill,’ Then Demands They Be More Bipartisan

Media

Angry woman screaming through spiral cables

Democrats Are Gaining Ground With One Key Demographic: The Mentally Ill

Democrats

Liberals

Mental Health

Nate Silver

Republicans

Voters

Canada’s laws against assisted suicide are getting looser.
In February 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the case Carter v. Canada, <a href="https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14637/index.do" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruled</a> that section 14 and paragraph 241(b) of the Criminal Code were unconstitutional because they banned physicians from assisting in the consensual death of another person. In 2016, the country introduced Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), a process that allowed someone found eligible by being terminally ill to be assisted by a medical practitioner in ending their life.
But in 2021, the need to be terminally ill was removed, and by March 2027, MAID may be used by people suffering from mental illness, but no physical illness.
In 2023, Canada had 15,343 MAID deaths, roughly one in every 20 deaths in Canada, one of the highest percentages in the world. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3wxq28znpqo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to the BBC</a>, roughly 96% of MAID deaths occur as “reasonably foreseeable,” such as someone suffering from cancer whose death is imminent or someone with Alzheimer&#8217;s, while the other 4% stem from people whose suffering is intolerable to them.
“I wouldn&#8217;t even call it a slippery slope,” Dr Ramona Coelho, who serves on a Maid Death Review Committee in Ontario, said. “Canada has fallen off a cliff.”
“When people have suicidal ideations, we used to meet them with counseling and care, and for people with terminal illness and other diseases we could mitigate that suffering and help them have a better life,” she continued. “Yet now we are seeing that as an appropriate request to die and ending their lives very quickly.”
Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and Austria have all implemented assisted dying laws since 2015. In the United States, assisted suicide is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dpwg1lq9yo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal in 10 states</a> and Washington, D.C. The way was paved by in Oregon in 1997. Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg also permit assisted suicide.
The Canadian government <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">states</a>, “If the medical practitioners assessing your request for MAID determine that your death is not reasonably foreseeable, there are extra safeguards that must be met before medical assistance in dying can be provided.” It adds:
<blockquote>
One of the 2 medical practitioners who provides an assessment must have expertise in the medical condition that is causing your unbearable suffering. If neither of them have this expertise, they must consult another practitioner with expertise in the medical condition during the assessment process. You must be informed of available means to relieve your suffering, and offered consultations with professionals who provide services including, where appropriate: palliative care, community services, counselling services, and mental health and disability support services.
You and your practitioners must have discussed reasonable and available means to relieve your suffering, and all agree that you have seriously considered those means. Your eligibility assessment must take a minimum of 90 days, unless the assessments have been completed sooner and you are at immediate risk of losing your capacity to consent. Immediately before you receive medical assistance in dying, the practitioner must give you an opportunity to withdraw your request, and ensure that you give express consent to receive medical assistance in dying.
</blockquote>

Disabled People Demonstrate Against Assisted Dying in London

Canada Becoming Less Strict About Assisted Suicide

Assisted Suicide

Canada

Social Issues

World

The wife of a South Carolina pastor who warned her sister he may shoot her died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a medical examiner has ruled.
Mica Miller, 30, made various claims of harassment and abuse in the weeks and months before she was found with a gunshot wound to the head on April 27. One of those claims, according to her sister, Sierra Francis, was that Miller’s husband, John-Paul, was to blame if she was found with a fatal head wound, The Christian Post <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/mica-miller-said-her-husband-would-shoot-her-sister-claims.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Francis made the claim in <a href="https://twitter.com/Protestia/status/1787319801825673723" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a sworn affidavit</a> as part of her bid to serve as special administrator for Miller’s estate. Francis also said in the affidavit that Miller had served her husband divorce papers just two days before her death.
“My sister also expressed to me that she was fearful that she would not make it to the divorce and that her life would be taken from her. It is my belief, based on conversations with my sister, that she told multiple people, including other family members,” Francis said in the affidavit.
“Mica stated to me on many occasions ‘if I end up with a bullet in my head, it was not by me, it was JP.’ Mica forwarded a family group text message notifying us that Mr. Miller was served the divorce papers on April 25, 2024,” Francis added. “On April 27, 2024, my sister, Mica A. Miller, was found dead as a result of a gunshot wound in Lumberton, North Carolina.”
ABC 15 <a href="https://wpde.com/news/local/mica-miller-john-paul-pastor-jp-wife-solid-rock-church-new-reports-car-theft-grooming-marriage-divorce-suicide-myrtle-beach-robeson-county-lumber-river-state-park-mental-health-episodes-hospitalized-south-carolina" target="_blank" rel="noopener">requested</a> reports from the Myrtle Beach Police Department listing Miller as a victim and received one. It also received another report listing her as the offender.
In the first report, Miller claimed John-Paul stole her car while she was “involuntarily hospitalized” between February 8 and 10. When she was released, she was told her husband had picked up her keys and purse from the hospital. She returned to the parking lot where she had left her car prior to her hospitalization and discovered it wasn’t there, so she reported it missing and accused her husband of stealing it, saying they had been separated since January 2023.
Police contacted John-Paul, who said he and his wife weren’t legally separated and that he had her car but that it was marital property. He also told police that his wife “suffers from mental health disorders” and would have yearly “episodes” around Christmas, causing her to become &#8220;reckless&#8221; and spend &#8220;large amounts of money when she stops taking her prescribed medication.&#8221; He told police he wouldn’t return the car for another month, which is how long the “reckless episodes” usually lasted.
Police determined that no criminal offense had been committed since the couple was legally married.
In the second police report tied to Miller, an employee of the Solid Rock Church, where John-Paul was a pastor at the time, accused Miller of stealing donations totaling $1,199 from the church’s 501C3. The police report indicates an investigation would follow the complaint, but it is not clear if that happened.
Miller also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nTUsZjo9ulc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">made claims</a> about being harassed prior to her death, according to ABC 15.
Ultimately, Miller took her own life. Police on Tuesday revealed that John-Paul was at an athletic event during the time of Miller’s death, and surveillance footage showed her purchasing a 9mm handgun that same morning, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/mica-miller-911-call-reveals-final-moments-before-her-death-nc-authorities-challenge-conspiracy-theories" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
On a 911 call released this week, Miller can be heard asking a 911 dispatcher if they could track her location.
&#8220;I&#8217;m about to kill myself, and I just want my family to know where to find me,&#8221; Miller told the dispatcher.
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&#8220;This incident has garnered much attention from across the Carolinas and beyond. I want to assure everyone that a very methodical investigation was conducted by our Criminal Investigations Team and Crime Scene Investigative Team,&#8221; Sheriff Burnis Wilkins said in a statement Tuesday, according to Fox. &#8220;Unfortunately, rumors and conspiracy theories were spreading quickly, and assumptions were being made.”
&#8220;However, in the end, we must make decisions based on the facts and evidence that has been gathered,” Wilkins added. “While I know it’s not what many people wanted to hear, the evidence is quite clear and compelling, and we are as saddened as anyone that this occurred. There are many factors that we have reviewed that occurred over an extended period of time that are probably related to the reason for this investigation, but in the end, sadly, a tragic decision was made by Mica that ended her life.&#8221;
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to <a href="http://speakingofsuicide.com/resources" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources</a> for a list of additional resources.

Gravestone

Pastor’s Wife Found Dead After Claiming Husband Might Shoot Her. Her Death Has Been Ruled A Suicide.

Pastor's Wife Found Dead After Claiming Husband Might Shoot Her. Her Death Has Been Ruled A Suicide.

South Carolina

Suicide

U.S.

The Daily Wire caught up with policy analyst and author Carrie Sheffield to talk with her about her new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Motorhome-Prophecies-Journey-Healing-Forgiveness/dp/1546004386/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1MCPY1LY9G6BK&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.U6jLnuG0UcJjuJ69YTShvcQr6Ezo_ux8egpxy3_tX0obBqozBXOQNMUa7_8fEazolWcS-NOWXGIsih85r2eeNz9V1jGTrnR4mSUZ_fIVhexCclFVtHgIjULyOD7pCboqgN_6orCmPsl-M5S082BZjA.v0WeUS8vwaUdtnuSzFCJH91q6PUV9wLYp4UlOmSaUR0&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=motorhome+prophecies&amp;qid=1713538529&amp;sprefix=motorhome%2Caps%2C93&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness,</a>&#8221; (CenterStreet/Hachette Book Group).
DW: Let’s start with politics. You’ve served as a policy analyst and columnist for several years now, both in New York and in Washington. Which issues are paramount in your mind as we head into the 2024 presidential election season?
Sheffield: Certainly the economy and immigration are top of mind for many voters, including me. The fact that inflation has ravaged household wages is an ongoing and pervasive problem. The fact that average monthly mortgage payments under Biden have skyrocketed means real pain and the dream of home ownership moves out of reach for more American families. Seeing our border towns and cities like New York and Chicago overrun with sanitation issues and safety problems due to Biden’s failed immigration policies is discouraging and must be stopped.
DW: Speaking of presidents, in “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Motorhome-Prophecies-Journey-Healing-Forgiveness/dp/1546004386/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1MCPY1LY9G6BK&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.U6jLnuG0UcJjuJ69YTShvcQr6Ezo_ux8egpxy3_tX0obBqozBXOQNMUa7_8fEazolWcS-NOWXGIsih85r2eeNz9V1jGTrnR4mSUZ_fIVhexCclFVtHgIjULyOD7pCboqgN_6orCmPsl-M5S082BZjA.v0WeUS8vwaUdtnuSzFCJH91q6PUV9wLYp4UlOmSaUR0&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=motorhome+prophecies&amp;qid=1713538529&amp;sprefix=motorhome%2Caps%2C93&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Motorhome Prophecies</a>” you write that your father was convinced he was a Mormon prophet destined to become president of the United States. Looking back, how did that influence the way your family lived?
Sheffield: Yes, my dad claimed that he’d be U.S. president one day. He also made some unproven claims, like President Reagan designating MLK Jr. Day because of my dad’s work supporting Dr. King’s messages and that his political essays influenced then-Speaker Newt Gingrich to impeach Bill Clinton.
Politics was in my dad’s blood because his father had been a successful Utah state lawmaker. He was also former chairman of the Salt Lake City Zoning and Planning Commission for 25 years. That his firstborn son would follow him into politics wasn’t too far-fetched.
My dad’s beliefs about his destiny absolutely motivated our nationwide travels in a street musical orchestra attracting listeners and then passing out patriotic and religious brochures. But the proselytizing came at an expensive price — his kids’ mental health and happiness. Multiple siblings have attempted suicide, two developed schizophrenia (it’s well documented that schizophrenia’s onset is exacerbated by childhood trauma), and I struggled with periodic suicidal ideation, depression, PTSD, and anxiety because of our dad’s zealotry.
Despite the negative aspects, dad gave me a deep love of our exceptional country, of intellectual inquiry, and beautiful music. Though we’ve had many disagreements, I know in his heart he has a deep desire to serve others through his work. I think his love of country in some ways blinded him to his personal life’s failures. That is a common fatal flaw for public servants. Children of politicians often experience abandonment problems as adults. Each generation must recognize and heal our own hurts.
<div id="attachment_726119" style="width: 391px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-726119" class="size-large wp-image-726119" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-381x576.webp" alt="CenterStreet/Hachette book Group" width="381" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-381x576.webp 381w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-199x300.webp 199w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-768x1160.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-1017x1536.webp 1017w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-1356x2048.webp 1356w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-scaled.webp 1695w" sizes=" (max-width: 381px) 100vw, 381px" />CenterStreet/Hachette book Group</div>
DW: “Motorhome Prophecies” is written in the vein of famous memoirs like “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance, “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls, and “Educated” by Tara Westover, all stories of young Americans growing up in very broken families. Yet each author is somehow able to escape and overcome their childhood trauma and find success as an adult. What were some factors that helped you overcome your childhood?
Sheffield: Necessity is the mother of invention. I knew that if I wanted a better life than the dark, dangerous one around me I needed to be resourceful, pragmatic and humble enough to ask for help. The bravest thing I&#8217;ve done took place when I was 18. In terms of the initial departure, here&#8217;s a passage from the book, it was actually my schizophrenic brother&#8217;s sexual assault and attempted rape that spurred me to start the process of leaving:
<blockquote>It would prove a long winding path, but Peter’s assault eventually became a catalyst for me to scrutinize my faith, to pray for God’s protection and guidance, and, eventually, to reject Ralph’s false prophecies and run away from home. I’m the fifth oldest sibling, but I was the first to escape the clutches of The Mission. That harrowing night back in 2000 taught me a lesson that would be reinforced time and again: life’s most wrenching crucibles can propel us to our greatest moments of growth and freedom.</blockquote>
I pushed myself to achieve in my career and work in public policy because I wanted a better life for myself than remaining trapped in a violent and impoverished environment. Also, as a woman, I wanted to bask in the freedoms denied my mother and myself as the first girl with four older brothers.
Early on, I also felt a sense of jaded insecurity that fueled my ambition. I wanted to prove my dad wrong. He prophesied that I&#8217;d be raped and murdered if I left the cult. I decided I&#8217;d soar to career heights surpassing his own. It’s a toxic, unstable motivation, to prove someone wrong, and it eventually comes crashing down.
Another reason I left was that I&#8217;d undertaken a long-term investigation into my dad and found his handwritten prophecies were in direct opposition to the teachings of the official LDS Church&#8217;s hierarchy.
For many years I struggled. I would paint myself in these absolutist black and white terms, that my dad was evil and that I was a hero for escaping. Today, though, I know I am not the hero of this book, but I am also not the villain. God is the hero, and though I thought my father was the villain, I now see he was crushed by severe religious zealotry sparked by mental illness after suffering sexual assault as a toddler. He also suffered through the death of his childhood best friend which led to enduring isolation. He’s just as deserving of God’s mercy and compassion as I am. I love my father and am sorry I waited so long to forgive him. I believe forgiving him earlier would have stopped me from some toxic self-sabotaging that I did to cope with the trauma.
<div id="attachment_726171" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-726171" class="size-large wp-image-726171" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-480x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Carrie Sheffield." width="480" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-480x576.jpg 480w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-250x300.jpg 250w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-768x921.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-1280x1536.jpg 1280w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-1707x2048.jpg 1707w" sizes=" (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" />Credit: Carrie Sheffield.</div>
DW: Your book deals a lot with mental illness. Authors like Abigail Shrier and Jonathan Haidt have also written books this year on young people struggling with mental illness. It seems to be a growing problem. Why do you think it&#8217;s a common thread and what are the broader takeaways found in &#8220;Motorhome Prophecies”?
Sheffield: Certainly depression and suicide are rising, and this is troubling. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last year released <a href="https://thedispatch.acemlna.com/lt.php?s=b497b0dace4b29102719b273346a3dbb&amp;i=2147A2461A1A75103" target="_blank" rel="noopener">provisional data</a> showing nearly 50,000 people committed suicide in the United States in 2022. This nearly 3% increase from 2021 is the highest number ever recorded and the highest rate since 1941 — the aftershocks of the Great Depression. It’s nearly 17 times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Gen Z is far more secular than their parents were when they were young, and I think it’s no coincidence Gen Z is also suffering far greater isolation and mental illness. This is a trend we can and must reverse. People who attend religious services at least weekly are significantly less likely to die “deaths of despair”— suicide, drug overdose, or alcohol poisoning, <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/regularly-attending-religious-services-associated-with-lower-risk-of-deaths-of-despair/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to 2020 research</a> from Harvard University’s School of Public Health. A literature review appearing in Psychiatric Times <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/religion-spirituality-and-mental-health">reported</a>: “Of 93 observational studies, two-thirds found lower rates of depressive disorder with fewer depressive symptoms in persons who were more religious. … a review of 134 studies that examined the relationships between religious involvement and substance abuse [concluded that] 90% found less substance abuse among the more religious.”
Ironically, research from the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-50618-001">Psychology of Religion and Spirituality</a> found atheism correlates with <a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychological-research-links-atheism-to-emotional-suppression/">emotional suppression</a>. Psychology professors (along with biologists) are least likely among all disciplines to believe in God, <a href="https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2007/07/faculty-faith-html#:~:text=A%20professor's%20field%20of%20research,%2C%20economists%2C%20and%20political%20scientists.">Harvard reported.</a> The journal Sociology of Religion <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/epiphenom/2009/05/psychologists-are-least-religious-of.html">similarly found</a> that psychologists are the least religious of American professors. This is a troubling combination. The same trained experts ordained to heal mental disorders are sometimes the very ones who are skeptical of rescuing balm.
A recovered agnostic, I experienced the power of faith to heal my own mental health, as I recount in my book. The biggest hurdle I needed to overcome was comprehending the difference between man-made abuse and healthy faith in God.
DW: Eventually you went to college and ended up at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. How did your worldview change while in Cambridge?
Sheffield: I became more aware of the narratives around “privilege” being crafted at places like Harvard. I gained a sense of understanding perhaps their altruistic impulse — indeed, our country had sexism, slavery, and Jim Crow as stains in our history. But eventually, I came to realize that good intentions do not equal good outcomes.
At Harvard, I also became more entrenched as an agnostic, which is sad because Harvard was founded to help clergy grow their intellectual capacity to teach the mind of God. Around 7 years after I graduated, during my Christian conversion process, the more I studied science, including metaphysics, history, anthropology, and other disciplines, the more my faith in God and my confidence in Christianity grew. Studying Christianity felt like uncovering buried treasure discarded by intellectuals at places like Harvard who had discounted its scientific and philosophical heft.
DW: You’ve written many articles over the years for various periodicals, but this is your first time writing a full-length book. What was the process like for you?
Sheffield: Writing a 90,000 word book is indeed a far heavier lift than a news article. I tell people who ask advice for writing a memoir to begin a journal today if they don’t already. This memoir genre was made far easier for me because I’ve got a stack of journals to assist. I’ve kept a journal since age 8 because journaling is strongly encouraged in the LDS Church and Mormon diaspora community due to strong cultural appreciation of genealogy and family history — the LDS Church has more than 2 billion records in its genealogy database. Also, as a newer faith, we know many things about its early origins due to contemporaneous journals. As a journalist, the personal journals made the process far easier for accuracy — I didn’t have to make up what I was thinking, I knew directly.

Camper Touring the American Southwest Monument Valley

Author Carrie Sheffield Recounts Harrowing Childhood In New Book ‘Motorhome Prophecies’

Author Carrie Sheffield Recounts Harrowing Childhood In New Book 'Motorhome Prophecies'

Books

family

Harvard

interview

Mormonism

Psychology

Readers Pass

Sexual Assault

A Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children before attempting to kill herself allegedly researched “ways to kill” prior to the deaths.
Lindsay Clancy, 32, reportedly kept two notebooks discussing the medications she was on and her “suicidal expressions and thoughts,” according to a search warrant <a href="https://www.insideedition.com/lindsay-clancy-search-warrant-murder-trial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reviewed by Inside Edition</a>. She reportedly wrote that she “confides in friends” about her mental state.
The warrant was filed on March 15 but only recently <a href="https://www.insideedition.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/679857984-Lindsay-Clancy-Sw-Court-Docs-Pt-2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unsealed</a>. Police hoped to use the search warrant to access Clancy’s cell phone and tablet.
In September, Clancy was charged on three counts each of murder and strangulation for the deaths of 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and Callan, who was only eight months old, Inside Edition <a href="https://www.insideedition.com/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-indicted" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. Clancy was previously indicted in Plymouth District Court on two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation or suffocation, and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
The newer indictment, however, moves her case out of the district court and into Plymouth Superior Court.
After allegedly strangling her children, she attempted to kill herself and was hospitalized. She is now receiving psychiatric care at Tewksbury Hospital and is expected to remain there until November.
Clancy&#8217;s attorney, Kevin J. Reddington, said his client suffered from postpartum depression and was overprescribed medicine.
Clancy used her cell phone to check the time it would take for her husband to return from errands so that she could strangle the kids and try to kill herself, prosecutors <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/massachusetts-mom-accused-of-strangling-children-timed-how-long-husband-would-be-away-prosecutors-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in February.
She allegedly sent her husband to pick up dinner and medications from a CVS store so she could kill their children and herself, the Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/moms-searches-show-she-plotted-to-strangle-her-kids-prosecutors-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. While he was out of the house, she allegedly strangled her children with exercise bands, killing the older children in the home and sending the youngest to a hospital, where he died later.
“The defendant did not take advantage of the situation when her husband left the home that night,” Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said during Clancy’s arraignment on Tuesday. “She created the situation. And she used Apple Maps to make sure she had enough time to strangle each child before her husband returned from where she sent him.”
Sprague added that it took at least four minutes to kill each child and that Clancy told a psychiatrist she “killed the kids because she heard a voice” and had “a moment of psychosis.”
During the hearing, Clancy’s husband, Patrick, said that his wife only used the word “psychosis” after speaking with a doctor hired by her defense attorney, the Beast reported.
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Clancy appeared at her February arraignment from her hospital bed, where she had been left paralyzed from the waist down after jumping out of a window in a suicide attempt after allegedly strangling her children. She also cut her wrists and neck before she jumped.
Patrick reportedly returned home and found the house quiet. He searched for the children and found Clancy lying injured in the backyard.
“What did you do? Where are the kids?” the prosecution said he asked.
His wife allegedly responded, “In the basement.”
Patrick then called 911 and allegedly found the children in the basement with exercise bands still around their necks.
Clancy reportedly had “suicidal ideations in December of 2022 … and on one occasion had thoughts of harming her children,” the prosecution said, <a href="https://people.com/crime/mass-mom-3-lindsay-clancy-allegedly-strangled-kids-heard-voice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to People magazine</a>. She committed herself to a Boston psychiatric hospital on January 1, prosecutors added, but was released on January 5. On January 24, she allegedly killed her children and attempted suicide.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to <a href="http://speakingofsuicide.com/resources" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources</a> for a list of additional resources.

Lindsay Clancy

Massachusetts Mom Researched ‘Ways To Kill’ Before Strangling Her 3 Kids, Search Warrant Reveals

Massachusetts Mom Researched 'Ways To Kill' Before Strangling Her 3 Kids, Search Warrant Reveals

Crime

Massachusetts

Murder

Dozens of U.S. states filed a lawsuit against <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/meta" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meta</a> and its Instagram social media platform on Tuesday, accusing the multinational technology conglomerate of contributing to the mental health crisis in American youth by making them addicted to its products.
Attorneys general from 33 states, including California and New York, filed the complaint in the Northern District of California federal court, claiming Meta violated federal children&#8217;s online privacy and state consumer protection laws.
&#8220;Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24080215-meta-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">233-page complaint</a>. &#8220;Its motive is profit.&#8221;
The lawsuit alleges that Meta has misled the public about the &#8220;substantial dangers&#8221; of its social media platforms by concealing its practices to make its &#8220;most vulnerable&#8221; consumers — teenagers and children — into addictive and compulsive social media users.
The states cited research that shows children&#8217;s use of Meta platforms is associated with &#8220;depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and many other negative outcomes.&#8221;
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tennessee-school-district-sues-social-media-companies-over-growing-mental-health-crisis-among-students" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issued</a> an advisory in May, citing a link between spending time on social media and the nation&#8217;s mental health crisis among the youth.
&#8220;I&#8217;m issuing this advisory because we&#8217;re in the middle of a youth mental health crisis, and I&#8217;m concerned that social media is contributing to the harms that kids are experiencing,&#8221; Murthy told The Hill.
According to a 2019 study, adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 who spent over three hours on social media per day had double the risk of developing symptoms of depression and anxiety, and the blame should not be placed entirely on parents who attempt to manage a healthy dose of social media for their children.
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&#8220;It&#8217;s an unreasonable expectation because prior generations never had to experience and manage the rapidly evolving technology that fundamentally changed how kids thought about themselves, how they thought about their friendships, and how they saw the world,&#8221; said Murthy.
Meta said in a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/instagram-facebook-children-teens-harms-lawsuit-attorney-general-1805492a38f7cee111cbb865cc786c28" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> to outlets that it shares &#8220;the attorneys general&#8217;s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online, and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,&#8221; the company added.
Eight other attorneys general and the District of Columbia <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/24/states-sue-meta-addictive-features-kids-00123217" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> are filing separate lawsuits against Meta for allegedly violating state consumer protection laws, bringing the total number of states to 42.
If the states succeed, Meta could be forced to pay massive fines and change how it advertises and designs its platforms to the public.

In this photo illustration the Meta Platforms logo seen in

33 States Sue Meta Alleging Social Media Platforms Fueled Youth Mental Health Crisis

33 States Sue Meta Alleging Social Media Platforms Harm Children's Mental Health

Big Tech

Facebook

Instagram

Social Media

The off-duty <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/off-duty-pilot-accused-of-attempting-to-shut-down-plane-engines-mid-flight-charged-with-83-counts-of-attempted-murder-reports" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alaskan Airlines pilot arrested</a> on Sunday for allegedly trying to shut down the engines of a fully occupied passenger flight in midair has been charged in federal court.
Joseph Emerson of Pleasant Hill, California, was charged with one count of interfering with flight crew members and attendants, according to a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/duty-commercial-airline-pilot-charged-federal-court-interfering-flight-crew" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from the District of Oregon Department of Justice.
Emerson, 44, was riding in the cockpit jump seat as a passenger on Horizon Air flight 2059 — an affiliate of Alaska Airlines — when he attempted to shut down the plane&#8217;s engines during a flight that departed from Seattle Paine Field International Airport and was scheduled to land at San Francisco International Airport.
Emerson was sitting in the jump seat located in the cockpit just behind the captain and first officer flying the jet. Pilots commonly ride in the jump seat to hitch a free ride when traveling personally or professionally.
Airline officials said in a news release following the incident that the pilots were forced to divert the aircraft to Portland International Airport in Oregon for an emergency landing because of &#8220;a credible security threat related to an authorized occupant in the flight deck jump seat.&#8221;
“The jump seat occupant unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the operation of the engines,” the airline said in a portion of the news release <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-charged-attempted-murder-trying-shut-alaska-airlines-engines-fligh-rcna121681" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by NBC. “The Horizon Captain and First Officer quickly responded, engine power was not lost and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.”
Federal authorities said the incident began halfway between Astoria, Oregon, and Portland.
&#8220;Emerson attempted to grab and pull two red fire handles that would have activated the plane&#8217;s emergency fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines. After a brief physical struggle with the pilots, Emerson exited the cockpit,&#8221; authorities said.
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During the flight&#8217;s descent into Portland, authorities said a flight attendant had to stop Emerson from attempting to grab another emergency exit handle after other attendants had already placed Emerson in wrist restraints and seated him in the rear of the aircraft.
Alaska Airlines released a follow-up statement on Monday night identifying Emerson, saying he tried to shut the engines down by engaging the Engine Fire Handle, also known as the fire suppression system.
&#8220;The fire suppression system consists of a T-handle for each engine,&#8221; the statement read in part. &#8220;If the T-handle is fully deployed, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel to the engine. In this case, the quick reaction of our crew to reset the T-handles ensured engine power was not lost.&#8221;
Audio recorded by LiveATC.net revealed that Seattle-area air traffic controllers were alerted about the attempt to turn off the plane&#8217;s engines.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit, and he doesn&#8217;t sound like he&#8217;s causing any issues in the back right now,&#8221; the pilot told Seattle-area air traffic controllers in audio recorded by LiveATC.net. &#8220;I think he&#8217;s subdued. Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and are parked.&#8221;
Upon arrival, the Port of Portland Police Department arrested Emerson for trying to seize control of the flight filled with 80 passengers on board, including lap infants, two pilots, and two flight attendants in the passenger cabin, according to local media.
Emerson was charged with 83 felony counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment, and one count of endangering an aircraft, according to Multnomah County Sheriff&#8217;s Office booking records.
Emerson remains in custody in Multnomah County on a federal hold pending his first appearance in federal court on a later date.
According to court documents <a href="https://abc7ny.com/pilot-joseph-emerson-alaska-airlines-pleasant-hill-david/13960619/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by ABC, Emerson told police he has been struggling with depression for six months and hadn&#8217;t slept in almost two days. He said he told the flight attendants to restrain him and said to authorities he was having a &#8220;nervous breakdown.&#8221;
Emerson also claimed to have used psychedelic mushrooms and wanted to wake up from what he thought was a dream.
Aubrey Gavello, a passenger on the plane, told ABC that a flight attendant alerted the other passengers that Emerson had suffered a mental breakdown.
&#8220;After we did land and the gentleman was escorted off, the flight attendant got back on the speaker and said, plain and simple, &#8216;He had a mental breakdown,'&#8221; Gavello said. &#8220;We needed to get him off the plane immediately.&#8221;
Alaska Airlines said in a statement <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12666655/pilot-joseph-david-emerson-trial-attempted-murder.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by the Daily Mail that the crew responded without hesitation to the &#8220;difficult and highly unusual situation.&#8221;
&#8220;All passengers on board were able to complete their journey with a new crew and aircraft,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;We are grateful for the patience of our guests throughout this event and are reaching out to each of them individually to discuss their experience and check-in on their well-being.&#8221;
According to the airline, Emerson joined Alaska Air Group as a Horizon First Officer in August 2001. He left the company in June 2002 to join Virgin America as a pilot. After Alaska acquired Virgin America in 2016, Emerson became an Alaska Airlines First Officer.
He later became an Alaska Airlines Captain in 2019.
&#8220;Throughout his career, Emerson completed his mandated FAA medical certifications in accordance with regulatory requirements, and at no point were his certifications denied, suspended or revoked,&#8221; the statement said.

US-AIRPLANE-ACCIDENT

Off-Duty Pilot Accused Of Attempting To Shut Down Plane Engines Mid-Flight Hit With Federal Charge

Off-Duty Pilot Accused Of Attempting To Shut Off Plane Engines Mid-Flight Hit With Federal Charge

Airlines

Plane Crash

Portland

San Francisco

On August 28, 2003, 46-year-old pizza delivery man Brian Wells walked into a PNC bank in Erie, Pennsylvania, with a massive metal collar around his neck, covered by a T-shirt. He gave the teller a multi-page rambling note demanding $250,000 in cash.
While Wells was waiting for the money, he grabbed a lollipop from a bowl on the teller’s desk and leaned on a cane, which was later determined to be a working gun disguised as a cane. The bank didn’t have $250,000 lying around, so Wells was only able to walk out with a bag stuffed with less than $9,000. Witnesses would later say he walked out of the bank swinging the cane and didn’t seem fearful or nervous at all.
Outside, Wells attempted to follow directions that would allow him to remove the collar around his neck, which he had told bank employees was wired to a bomb. Wells was barely out of the bank a few minutes before police surrounded him and placed him in handcuffs.
<div id="attachment_610009" style="width: 422px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-610009" class="size-large wp-image-610009" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-412x576.webp" alt="In this photo released Sept. 17, 2005, by the FBI, Brian Wells, 46, of Erie, Pa., carries a plastic bag of cash after robbing the PNC Bank in Summit Towne Centre in Erie on Aug. 28, 2003. Wells is shown sucking on a lollipop inside the bank, wearing a collar bomb and carrying a cane-shaped firearm.AP" width="412" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-412x576.webp 412w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-215x300.webp 215w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-768x1073.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-1100x1536.webp 1100w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p.webp 1240w" sizes=" (max-width: 412px) 100vw, 412px" />Credit: CCTV. AP.</div>
While sitting cross-legged on pavement, Wells told the police officers that he had a bomb around his neck that would explode.
&#8220;Why isn&#8217;t anybody trying to get this thing off me?&#8221; he asked them.
Soon, a beeping could be heard from the collar, and Wells became more desperate for help. Not long after, the bomb exploded, killing Wells instantly.
The images of that day have not been forgotten, and while we know who was behind the bank heist plot, one question remains to this day: Why was no one ever held responsible for Wells’ death?
The answer surely comes from the law enforcement’s determination that Wells was a co-conspirator in the plot and, subsequently, his own death. But that raises a similar question: Why, after all that we now know, is Wells still considered a co-conspirator?
His family certainly insists that he could not have been part of the plot. His sister, Jean Heid, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/05/pizza.bomb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> CNN in 2011 that her brother was “innocent 100 percent.”
&#8220;They screwed up big time,&#8221; Heid said, referring to the officers present went Wells died. &#8220;They let an innocent man, my brother, die while in their custody and they didn&#8217;t even lift a finger to help him.”
&#8220;This case is going to be looked at for years to come, and they don&#8217;t want it known that they screwed up,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Brian never would have done this.&#8221;
The evidence that Wells was involved in the plot has always been shaky. The main person who claimed Wells was in on the whole thing was Kenneth Barnes, a convicted crack dealer who was convicted for playing a role in the bank heist. Barnes had every reason to lie about Wells. If Wells was involved, then Barnes and the other co-conspirators couldn’t be charged with his murder, which could have landed them on death row. Barnes was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the bomb plot, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years after he testified against another co-conspirator.
An FBI agent, in a court affidavit, said another witness corroborated Barnes’ story. There was also a witness who claimed he saw Wells driving away from a home where the bomb plot was concocted on the day before the bank robbery. There is no evidence to suggest Wells was there collaborating with his killers – for all the witness knew, Wells was simply delivering a pizza to the people who planned to use him for their plot.
And the FBI maintained that even if Wells was involved, his role was limited to some of the early planning stages, and that he was never willing to wear the bomb collar that caused his death.
&#8220;We have reason to believe that at some point that he was coerced, that it was placed on his neck by another individual,&#8221; U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19718261">told</a> NBC News in 2007.
One reason authorities came to believe Wells was involved was his demeanor inside the bank. He was reportedly calm and did things that someone forced to rob a bank against their will would not have done. But perhaps that was Wells’ nerves showing, just not in the way one would expect.
Wells’ connection to the co-conspirators was through a prostitute he frequented named Jessica Hoopsick, who knew Kenneth Barnes. In the 2018 Netflix documentary “Evil Genius,” Hoopsick admitted to setting Wells up for the crime, even though she described him as a friend. She said that Barnes promised her drugs and money for the name of a person he and his co-conspirators could use to rob the bank. Hoopsick insisted Wells knew nothing about the robbery plans and wasn’t in on the planning.
It doesn’t appear any follow-ups have been conducted since Hoopsick’s bombshell revelation.
Another blow to the idea that Wells was involved comes from the random nature of the call that led him to the radio tower where the collar was placed on his neck. His boss at the pizza restaurant where he worked answered the phone but couldn’t understand the person on the other line. His boss then handed the phone to Wells, who took down the order. Maybe Wells was hovering, waiting for a call at that moment, or maybe it was a complete coincidence that he happened to be the one nearby to take the order. Had another employee taken the call, or another delivery driver gotten the assignment, would they have been the one in the collar?
While authorities are reportedly unconvinced that Wells was an innocent victim, there is no doubt that Kenneth Barnes, Floyd Stockton, William Rothstein, and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong were involved.
How their involvement was discovered, however, was a story all its own.
Police had no leads as to who was behind the bomb plot, and were struggling to solve the case, until September 20, 2003 – nearly a month after Wells’ death. Rothstein, a handy-man and part-time shop teacher who always wanted everyone to know he was the smartest man in the room, called 911 on that day to report a dead body in the freezer in his garage.
The body turned out to be that of James Roden, Diehl-Armstrong’s boyfriend, whom she had killed before asking Rothstein to dispose of the body. Rothstein explained to police that he humored Diehl-Armstrong about disposing of the body so that he could report her to police.
Diehl-Armstrong, a former valedictorian who was bipolar and a shadow of her former self, was charged with killing her boyfriend Rosen. Diehl-Armstrong had previously gone on trial for killing another boyfriend in 1984, but she claimed self-defense and was acquitted. Following that death, several other men associated with Diehl-Armstrong died under mysterious circumstances.
<div id="attachment_610017" style="width: 234px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-610017" class="wp-image-610017 size-medium" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666-224x300.jpg" alt="Subject of the &quot;Evil Genius&quot; documentary Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong mugshot. (Photo courtesy Erie Police/Getty Images)" width="224" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666-224x300.jpg 224w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666-430x576.jpg 430w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666.jpg 764w" sizes=" (max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px" />Photo courtesy Erie Police/Getty Images</div>
Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty, but mentally ill, to killing Rosen and was originally sent to Mayview State Hospital, but later transferred to a state prison.
Rothstein, meanwhile, died of cancer at the age of 60. A previous suicide note he had written stated that his would-be suicide had nothing to do with the Wells case, a curious inclusion. On his death bed, he refused to discuss the Wells case with investigators.
During this time, investigators linked Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong to the payphone that was used to call the pizza restaurant where Wells worked to order the pizza that kicked off the bank heist.
Police eventually spoke to Floyd Stockton, who was Rothstein’s roommate at the time Wells was murdered and who was a fugitive on a rape charge involving a disabled teenager. Stockton told police that Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong were involved in the bomb plot. Rothstein reportedly needed $250,000 to satisfy family members looking to sell the family home in which he lived. Diehl-Armstrong wanted the money to pay Kenneth Barnes to kill her father, who was giving away her inheritance. 
It is believed Rothstein built the bomb and obtained some parts for it from Diehl-Armstrong, but he died before he could be charged.
Diehl-Armstrong at times gave information about the Wells case but denied her own involvement. It was never clear when she was lying and when she was telling the truth. She was charged with the bomb plot in 2007, convicted to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2011, and died in prison on April 4, 2017, at the age of 68.
Barnes also died in prison, on June 20, 2019, at the age of 65. He had been Diehl-Armstrong’s “fishing buddy” prior to their involvement in Wells’ death.
Stockton was granted immunity for cooperating with law enforcement and died on August 10, 2022, at the age of 75.
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