Opinion: Mass Shootings Due To A Mental Health Crisis

For nearly 2 decades or longer, this country has had a plague of mass shootings. Many, if not all of the shooters, have had serious mental health issues. Often times, it is discovered that some of the perpetrators were known, or made known to law enforcement, well before they carried out their heinous acts of violence.

People then become outraged, and more often than not, point the finger of blame at local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, for not stopping the atrocities before they occurred. Yet these agencies don't have the power to do anything until or if some perpetrator makes an attempt to carry out their dark acts.

What is the reason for this? In many cases, law enforcement agencies have been hamstrung by an out of touch justice system, and well intentioned, but myopic "victim's advocacy" groups.

Advocates for the mentally ill, too often have successfully painted all mental health agencies with the broad brush of the insane asylums of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They successfully portrayed them as wretched places of despair and hopelessness as often depicted in some old horror movie.

They effectively championed the picture of all mental health agencies as being like those insane asylums from long ago, and demanded the release of hundreds, if not thousands of mentally ill patients. The courts agreed, and large numbers of the mentally ill were released onto a society that frankly, did not want them, nor was prepared to provide them with the care they need.

We have seen some of them appear among the large numbers of the homeless. Mentally ill homeless people, whose numbers began to grow rapidly in the cities and towns that were, and still are unprepared for them. Numbers that grew rapidly after court decisions ordering their release, with little or no consideration as to how they would continue to receive the treatment they need, or the physical care that all human beings have a right to.

In essence, another stigma was added to these already stigmatized people for being mentally ill, and to those facilities that cared for them. This has resulted in a justice system that was and still is, all too reluctant to give orders for the diagnosis, treatment, and care of those people whose behavior, threats, and actions, have warranted it.

Until there is a demand from the public at large for reforms, the numbers of these heinous, evil atrocities will only occur again and again. The time for us all to demand action is now.

We must all remember as well, that the time for us to pray is now, and always. Especially pray for all the victims, the first responders, and the young shooter Nikolas Cruz as well.

From "Conservative Review": "Regime-friendly NY Times makes big money selling Iran tours"

The following is from an article at “Conservative Review” by Jordan Schachtel:

Regime-friendly NY Times makes big money selling Iran tours

Conflict of interest?

The recent protests in Iran have raised many red flags and questions as to whether the Times is reporting the news objectively. As videos continue to surface on social media, showing masses of people calling for an end to the regime (and even “death  to the Islamic Republic”), the New York Times has downplayed the protests as merely  economic disputes. Moreover, the paper’s Tehran-based reporter was conveniently “on vacation” as the most consequential, anti-regime protests in years spread through Iran like wildfire.

It turns out that The New York Times has a special financial relationship with the Iranian regime, likely unknown to many of its readers. As one of the few U.S.-based Iran tour providers, The Grey Lady delivers unprecedented access to the theocratic nation for a price.

Based on publicly available data  on the New York Times travel website, Conservative Review has analyzed that the organization’s “Iran: Tales from Persia” trip, which is hosted by New York Times journalists and opinion writers, is a cash cow that has reaped millions of dollars in revenue for the publication.

The Times’ travel website lists nine publicly available trips to Iran in 2018, with an average group size of 20 people. The Iran tour costs $7,895 per person (based on double occupancy. Single travelers pay an additional $1,500), plus $425 for internal airfare. The price does not include international airfare.

Read more at “Conservative Review” by clicking here.

Obama Administration Discriminates Against Syrians -- If They're Christians

Hundreds of Assyrian families, some of them recently arrived from Islamic State controlled areas of Syria, attend Easter Sunday service at St. Georges Assyrian Church of The East in Sed El Baouchrieh, a working class suburb of Beirut.

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Non-Muslim Syrian refugees have been virtually locked out by the Obama administration, according to current data from the State Department.

According to the Refugee Processing Center, of the 6,877 Syrian refugees that have arrived in 2016 through July 31st, 6,834 of those are identified as Sunni, Shia, or generic Muslim. Only 43 (0.7 percent of total) refugees admitted have been non-Muslim.

That 0.7 percent of refugees arriving this year represents a statistically insignificant fraction of the more than 2.6 million Catholic, Syriac, Assyrian, and Greek Orthodox Christians, as well as Yazidis, other religions, and atheists living in Syria.

Yet all of these groups are being targeted by Islamic extremists -- indeed, Secretary of State John Kerry himself has claimed these groups are facing a genocide.

Just yesterday, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he is opposed to any religious test for entering the United States "A religious test for entering our country is not reflective of America's fundamental values. I reject it."

Despite Ryan's rejection, the State Department's own numbers reveal active discrimination targeting non-Muslim Syrian refugees.

Read more by clicking below:

Obama Administration Discriminates Against Syrians -- If They're Christians