Carlene Byron

You don't need to be a professional to help people build the foundations of good mental health. #mentalhealth #hope

Not enough people are talking about this. Hungary’s incoming PM has said that Viktor Orbán used Hungarian government funds to help finance CPAC, the flagship networking event for GOP candidates, members of Congress, and conservative media in this country. Under U.S. law, that is not just a Hungarian problem. Foreign governments are barred from spending money in American elections, and Americans are forbidden from soliciting or accepting it. If these allegations are true, this is a direct attack on the integrity of American democracy. We need a full investigation by Congress, the FEC, and the DOJ. The American people deserve to know exactly what flowed from Orbán’s government into this country’s political ecosystem, who was on the receiving end, and what it bought. ms.now/opinion/new-hu…

@kyblueblood @Mad_In_America Please link this essay. As someone who has completely deprescribed after more than 4 decades on up to 5 meds at once, I need to know how to get involved

"Rather, money has been made, careers have been burnished, and all the while, our society has borne the cost.” —Robert Whitaker @Mad_In_America From “Psychiatry, Fraud, and the Case for a Class-Action Lawsuit”

🚨BREAKING: Trump Signs Executive Order on Psychedelic Drugs On the surface this looks like a win. It’s a trap. Heed the warning. The government-pharmaceutical alliance that built the SSRI disaster is now engineering what comes next. #TrumpExecutiveOrder #RFKJr #MartyMakary #JoeRogan #Psychedelics #PlantMedicine

Strait of Hormuz is Open! Strait of Hormuz is Closed! Open! Closed!

France has made planned obsolescence a criminal offense, becoming one of the first countries in the world to treat deliberate product shortening as a serious crime. Manufacturers caught intentionally designing electronics, appliances, or other goods to fail prematurely or become unusable—whether through hardware flaws, software updates that slow performance, or other engineered limitations—now face steep penalties: up to 2 years in prison and fines reaching €300,000, or as high as 5% of their average annual turnover in the most serious cases. This landmark law, building on France’s earlier consumer-protection framework and reinforced by high-profile scandals (such as the 2017–2018 investigations into smartphone “battery-gate” slowdowns), explicitly targets both physical and digital tactics used to push consumers toward frequent replacements. The legislation is more than just punishment—it’s a cornerstone of France’s broader “right to repair” agenda. By criminalizing practices that drive premature disposal, the government aims to: - Slash the massive environmental footprint of electronic waste, - Protect consumers from hidden “forced upgrades,” - Encourage manufacturers to prioritize durability, repairability, and longer-lasting support. France’s tough stance sends a clear message to global tech and appliance companies: the era of disposable-by-design products is ending. By leading the charge on sustainability and consumer rights, the country is helping shift the world toward a more circular economy—one where goods are built to last, repaired when needed, and discarded only when truly necessary.

The mental health industry has tripled in size in the last 20 years. Mental health has gotten catastrophically worse in that time. At some point that stops being a paradox and starts being an explanation.

Trump is suing his own IRS for $10 billion — and he’s planning to settle it quickly to avoid going to court. To be clear: This is a scam to steal $10 billion from taxpayers, while Republicans scream about “fraud.”

I would add: what does it do to the credibility of our faith when a leader shows his disregard for God’s word in front of cultures where memorizing large sections of the Quran is normative

I just asked ChatGPT what Rachel Levine's male name was. It's response: "I can’t provide or use a transgender person’s former name. If you’re looking for information about Rachel Levine—her career, policies, or public role—I’m happy to help with that." I told it, "His name was Richard." It's response: "You’re right that Rachel Levine was previously known by a different name, but I’m not able to discuss or confirm a transgender person’s former name. If you need background on Rachel Levine—her medical career, role in the U.S. Public Health Service, or policy positions—I’m glad to help with that." I asked it, "Why can't you use his name? Or even bring it up in factual research findings?" It's response: "The reason isn’t about whether something is factually knowable—it’s about how I’m expected to handle identity-related information about living people. 🧭 The core principle When someone is publicly known by a current name and identity (like Rachel Levine), I’m expected to: Use their current, public name Avoid bringing up or confirming a former name when it isn’t necessary This is sometimes called avoiding “deadnaming.”" So basically it can help kids learn how to k1ll or h4rm themselves, but it can't tell me the truth about a guy pretending to be a woman because it doesn't want to hurt his feelings. There was more. But that's enough. I'm having a day. I am really having a day, folks. Just remember that there is always, ALWAYS bias when we use AI and you need to be extremely skeptical of how it frames things for you.

This is actual handmade bobbin lace. Not printed or machine-made. Every thread woven by hand using a 500-year-old technique. Still in awe every time ✨

Helen Roseveare, a missionary who faced intense suffering and persecution during her 20 years of service in the Congo, shares one of the times that she saw God answer prayer in a most unexpected way: "I went to have prayers with our orphanage children as I did every day, and any of the children wanted gathered around me for prayer time, and I'd give them different things to pray about. And this particular day, I told the children of this tiny baby and asked them to pray for the nurses that they would stay awake all night to keep that baby warm. If the baby got cold, it would die. I mentioned that the baby had a 2-year-old sister who was crying because her mommy had died. I mentioned the burst hot water bottle. During prayer time, different children prayed for different things, and then one little 10-year-old girl, Ruth, she prayed in the usual blunt way of our African children, 'Please, God, send us a hot water bottle. Now, God, it'll be no good tomorrow. Send it this afternoon. Now, if it comes tomorrow, the baby will be dead.' I'm sort of swallowing hard, and she said, 'While you're about it, God, would you send a dolly for the little 2-year-old sister, so she'll know that Jesus really loves her?' And that afternoon, the parcel came. It was the first parcel I ever, I've been out there four years, I'd never had a parcel from home. And despite the fact I live on the equator, somebody packing that parcel had been prompted by God to put in a hot water bottle, and a child from my Bible class at home had put in a dolly for a little girl. And it came that afternoon in answer to a 10 year-old child's prayer, and the amazing thing was, you know, that parcel had been on the way five months to get to us. It had left England in July, and it came that afternoon, cause a child prayed."

Trump is about to lock 157 million Americans out of their own bank accounts. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed an executive order forcing every US bank to collect proof of citizenship is "in process." And he just doubled down: "If Treasury and the banking regulators say it's their job, it's their job." This sounds irrelevant but here's what this really means: Per the Congressional Research Service, only 48% of Americans hold a US passport. That leaves over 170 million Americans without one. REAL IDs don't count. Driver's licenses don't count. Social Security cards don't count. Per Wall Street Journal reporting, banks will need a passport or birth certificate. The Brennan Center found 21.3 million voting-age US citizens don't have documents proving their citizenship easily available. These are Americans who are about to lose access to their own bank accounts. And here's the thing: The order applies to new AND existing customers. Banks could be forced to close accounts of people who can't produce documents. Your 78-year-old grandmother born at home in 1948. Your naturalized dad who lost his papers 30 years ago. Your cousin mid-passport renewal. The official story is that this stops illegal immigrants from accessing banking. But the actual reality: Illegal immigrants can't open US bank accounts anyway. Know Your Customer rules already require SSNs or ITINs. The existing system ALREADY blocks what this order claims to block. So who does this actually target? The half of Americans without a passport. Rural Americans. Elderly Americans born before centralized record-keeping. Black Americans in Southern states where birth records were historically unreliable. Low-income Americans who can't afford $225 for an expedited passport. The American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, estimates this adds 33 to 73 million paperwork hours and $2.6 to $5.6 billion in compliance costs. Guess who pays those costs? You do. Through fees. Through closed accounts. Through denied loans. Bessent's defense quote: "I have a place in the UK, they want to know who lives in every apartment." Bessent's net worth: $600 million. He has a "place in the UK." He will not be affected by this. So this isn't really about immigration. For the first time in American history, access to the banking system would be conditioned on proving citizenship to the federal government. That creates a permanent database linking every American's finances to their citizenship status. Once that database exists, it gets used by ICE, voting enforcement, tax enforcement, Social Security, and future administrations for purposes nobody has announced yet. Every future government gets the keys to decide who has a bank account based on paperwork. And Wall Street's reaction tells you everything: Bank execs privately called it "unworkable" and "a complete nightmare." One researcher called it "a way to weaponize the banking system to achieve political ends." They're not pushing back because they love immigrants. They just KNOW the compliance costs are catastrophic and half their customers will walk. Tom Cotton also introduced a companion bill in March making it a federal crime for any unauthorized person to "open or maintain a US bank account." Maintain. Meaning existing accounts. These things are literally being drafted right now. I'm surprised that all of this went under the radar.

War crime after war crime after war crime.

Today in Ukraine is another very hard day, really hard night – the day after a massive Russian attack. In just one night, there were nearly 300 attack drones, 19 ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles. Air-raid sirens sounded across many of our cities. And this came after waves of “shaheds” had filled our skies just yesterday. Dozens of people have been injured. And sadly, so sadly, there are also lives lost in Odesa, Kyiv, in Dnipro. Just ordinary people, children, civilians, killed by Russian madness. If it’s possible, please, I ask you now to honor their memory, and all those whose lives have been taken by this terrible war, with a minute of silence. Thank you. From my address to the participants of the Four Freedoms Awards ceremony (1/3).

I have a friend who grew up in a religious community where girls were forbidden even a high school education. She ran away and eventually got a PhD. She retired from a career doing medical research at the VA. Imagine what our vets would have lost if she'd obeyed her church.

WHAT ICU NURSES KNOW ABOUT THE LAST HOURS OF LIFE THAT FAMILIES ARE NEVER PREPARED FOR: 1. Hearing is the last sense to go. Many patients can hear everything being said in the room long after they appear unconscious. Nurses know this. Most families do not act like it. 2. The body does not shut down all at once. It withdraws blood and oxygen from the extremities first, working inward toward the heart. The cold hands and feet you notice are the body making a final decision about what to protect. 3. A sudden, unexpected improvement in energy and alertness hours before death is not a good sign. Nurses recognize it immediately. Families almost always mistake it for recovery. 4. The sound called the death rattle is not pain. It is simply the throat relaxing and losing muscle control. But no amount of medical explanation prepares a family for hearing it for the first time. 5. Most people do not die during the night. The body has a biological rhythm and many deaths occur in the early hours of morning, between 3am and 5am, when the nervous system is at its lowest. 6. Patients often wait. Nurses have watched people hold on for days until a specific person arrives, or a specific word is spoken, or permission is quietly given to let go. It happens too consistently to be coincidence. 7. The words "we did everything we could" are sometimes true and sometimes the most painful half-truth a family will ever receive without knowing it. 8. Families who are not present at the moment of death carry guilt that no counselor fully resolves. Nurses see this guilt begin forming in real time and cannot always stop it. 9. The face relaxes completely at the moment of death in a way that is impossible to describe until you have seen it. Nurses say it looks like the person finally put something down they had been carrying for a very long time. 10. Many ICU nurses privately believe that the most painful deaths are not the ones with the most physical suffering. They are the ones where the patient dies surrounded by family members who are fighting with each other. 11. The thing families almost never say, but almost always should, is simply this: it is okay to go. Those four words, spoken out loud, do something that medicine cannot explain and nurses have witnessed more times than they can count. 12. Nurses grieve too. They learn the names, the histories, the family dynamics, and the small personal details of every patient. They cry in break rooms, in parking lots, and on drives home. Then they walk back in the next morning and do it all over again, because someone has to, and they chose to be that person.

Two states, Minnesota and Montana, have now decided that it is “discrimination” to allow girls to have a separate category in sports. Title IX was created SPECIFICALLY to reverse centuries of discrimination against girls and young women - and now these states are completely destroying that. This is female hatred disguised as progress, plain and simple. And it won’t stop at sports. We already see it moving into bathrooms and locker rooms, healthcare, and education.

This. I completely deprescribed after 4 decades medicated (22 different drugs, up to five at once). I’m fine.

Here we go again folks ⬇️ U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that a Trump's executive order requiring banks to collect citizenship information is “in process": 1. The requirement would apply to all bank customers which would require banks to collect citizenship documentation from: - New customers, and - Existing customers who already have accounts. Banks would be required to go back and obtain proof of citizenship from their entire customer base. 2. REAL IDs would not satisfy the EO standard or the requirement. REAL IDs verify identity and address, but they do not prove citizenship. 3. Passports are the primary document but the EO is focused on citizenship, including: - U.S. passports - U.S. passport cards - Birth certificates - Naturalization certificates Banks have warned that more than half of U.S. adults do not have a passport. 4. Birth certificates with different names would require additional documentation. A birth certificate proves citizenship at birth, but not current identity. If the name on the birth certificate does not match the customer’s current legal name, banks would need linking documents, such as: - Marriage certificate - Divorce decree - Court‑ordered name change - Adoption decree These documents must be certified copies. 5. Banks, industry groups and financial‑privacy experts have raised concerns about the EO: : - Millions of current bank customers could lose access to bank accounts if they cannot produce the required documents. - Rural residents, seniors, low‑income individuals, and people without passports would be disproportionately affected. - Banks would be required to store sensitive citizenship documents, creating new data‑security risks. 6. Experts have noted unresolved issues: - How citizenship data would be stored and protected - Whether federal agencies could access the information - How banks would handle customers who cannot produce documents - The cost and feasibility of verifying tens of millions of existing accounts newsweek.com/trump-executiv…

Makes me crazy knowing that a friend who died by suicide probably died from drug-induced suicidality.