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Connecticut’s Mental Health Providers Beg for Increase in Medicaid, Despite Millions Spent & No One is Getting Better

Written by Sheila Matthews on September 15, 2024. Posted in Articles.

September 16, 2024

Summary Psychiatric Drug Use in Medicaid Population in Connecticut

Health care spending in the U.S. makes up 16.6% of the nation’s GDP, more than any other country in the world and mental health accounts for a reported 5% of that spending. Make no mistake, mental illness in America is an extremely costly or profitable health care problem depending on who is paying, and who is getting paid, for treatment services. What is also clear is that the numbers of Americans being diagnosed as mentally ill continually increases. At some point the question becomes with the hundreds-of-billions of dollars being dumped on mental health “treatment,” why isn’t anyone getting better?

In fact, as of April, the U.S. reports that one in five adults and up to 20% of children experience a mental illness with a price tag of an estimated $282 billion annually. The mental health “providers,” those non-profit organizations that states contract with to provide the needed mental health “treatment” services, complain that reimbursement for services is wholly inadequate. Maybe, but how do these behavioral health providers work?

Queasy Congressional Task Force Sits on Physical Evidence

Written by Sheila Matthews on September 11, 2024. Posted in Articles.

September 11, 2024

Photo Credit (Kenny Holston / The New York Times)*

It’s been two months since numerous investigations were begun into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. It’s no surprise that all these bloated but well-funded investigative entities have produced no new information since what was made public the day of the shooting. Nothing. NADA, Zip. A big hole in a donut!

And, worse, the Congressional Investigative body, the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, which promises to provide its findings no later than December 13 of this year, reports that it has received important physical information, but it’s anyone’s guess when or if it will be released to the public. How is this possible?

Journalist, Investigative Reporter & Author, Sharyl Attkisson, Visits Vero Beach

Written by Sheila Matthews on September 9, 2024. Posted in Articles.

September 9, 2024 Vero Beach Book Center

Sharyl Attkisson, Journalist & Host of nonpartisan Sunday-morning TV Show Full Measure & Author with Sheila Matthews, Cofounder of AbleChild.org

Sharyl Attkisson has been a working journalist for more than forty years and is the host and managing editor of the nonpartisan Sunday-morning television program Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson. She has covered controversies under the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, emerging, as the Washington Post put it, with a reputation as a “persistent voice of news-media skepticism about the government’s story.” She is the recipient of five Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting. She has worked for CBS News, PBS, and CNN, and is a fifth-degree black belt master in tae kwon do.

Also By Sharyl Attkisson:
Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism
The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote
Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington

Her New Book Follow the Science, How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails

School Shootings on Trial Again

Written by Sheila Matthews on September 8, 2024. Posted in Articles.

September 9, 2024

In a hushed Georgia courtroom, father and son faced justice for a devastating murderous act that shook a community to its core. Fourteen-year-old Colt Gray sat before the judge, accused of snuffing out four lives at Apalachee High School. Grieving families watched silently as the teen faced four counts of first-degree murder, with the possibility of life in prison.

Colin Gray, 54, followed his son into the courtroom and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, and child cruelty. If convicted, Colin could face up to 180 years behind bars. As cameras captured the proceedings, father and son were assigned public defenders. After a brief recess, the teenage shooter was summoned back to the courtroom. The judge, realizing the need for clarification, formally advised the teenager that state law prohibited the death penalty for juveniles,

Georgia’s Spending Increases on Failed Mental Health Programs & No One is Getting Better

Written by Sheila Matthews on September 6, 2024. Posted in Articles.

September 6, 2024

Photo Credit: Grant Blankenship GPB News

It’s so predictable. Everything is falling in line with standard school shooter law enforcement procedures. Zero information is being publicly provided regarding the Georgia shooter, Colt Gray’s, mental health background and prescription psychiatric drug use. The information that is being made available suggests that Gray is just another in a long line of school shooters, raised in a troubled, drug addicted home, visited by ineffective state family services representatives and, probably, drugged to correct inappropriate behavior.

More to the point, if there are no deviations from the cookie-cutter investigation now occurring and standard mental health information being withheld, the outcome of this shooting will lead to a State Commission set up to investigate the cause of the shooting which will, ultimately, recommend increased mental health funding.

AbleChild’s Statement on Mass Killing in Georgia

Written by Sheila Matthews on September 4, 2024. Posted in Articles.

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

The murder of 4 and wounding of 9 school-aged children and one teacher in Apalachee High School in Winder, GA is indicative of a pattern that is becoming fairly obvious. More often than not these shooters have been prescribed psychiatric drugs.

Contrary to the Vice President’s comments, these are not “senseless tragedies.” These shootings actually make sense when one begins to consider the mental health element.

Jud Smith, Barrow County Sheriff, explained that the public needed to have patience because “they want to get it right.” Okay, let’s see. But the public is at the mercy of law enforcement, and it isn’t taking any questions or giving any information, yet CNN (John Miller and Mark Morales) are obtaining information from a “law enforcement source in Georgia.”

This is troubling for a number of reasons. Law enforcement leaking information to one news source is what tends to muddy the details of the situation, and it is exactly the reason so many of these mass killings are never solved. What is certain is that as they continue to occur, the funding for more dangerous mental health services increases. It has also been reported that the FBI had this 14-year-old boy on their radar; this is another alarming aspect of this unfolding crime scene.

Sheriff Smith indicated that he was taking no questions and would not comment on any information thus far. CNN, however, claims to have inside information that the “high school received a phone call this morning warning there would be shootings at five schools and that Apalachee would be the first.” Who in Georgia law enforcement is leaking this information to CNN?

More to the point, these shootings are NOT “senseless tragedies.” These shootings go hand-in-hand with the mental health funding and the dangerous psychiatric drugs being prescribed to American children. This is about following the pharmaceutical/behavioral health money. For instance, let’s consider the mental health spending that has been provided to Barrow County, GA. These shootings are not occurring because there is a lack of access to mental health services, nor a lack of money to fund those services.

Billions in Funding at Risk If Audrey Hale’s Mental Health Records Are Released to Public

Written by Sheila Matthews on September 3, 2024. Posted in Articles.

September 3, 2024

Tennessee Star Reports on Inventory collected by investigators “Psych Folder” #46 Audrey Hale

The Tennessee Star released today a 2023 journal written by Covenant School shooter, Audrey Hale. The release of the journal provides very little new information about the shooter’s motives but raises interesting questions about the public’s right to review all the investigative material, including, and especially, mental health records.

Unfortunately, the 2023 journal entries are a rambling diatribe by Hale lamenting having been born a female and whining about how misunderstood she is by her parents and particularly her father. She alleges that she is a victim of having been born the wrong sex and having a broken brain, most of the pages in the journal are about Hale’s desire to die and only then will Hale be happy. Clearly there are many mental health issues involved with Hale leading up to the shooting. The question, though, is what caused Hale’s decent into suicidal and homicidal ideation?

FBI Withholds Physical Evidence in Update on Trump Attempted Assassination Investigation

Written by Sheila Matthews on August 29, 2024. Posted in Articles.

August 29, 2024

President Trump Campaign Trail 2024, Butler, PA Photo Credit: AP Photo, Evan Vucci

Forty-five days after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released a litany of investigative information. While any nibble goes a long way, the information provided has shortcomings insomuch as the FBI still is not being specific about the all-important physical evidence.

Special Agent in charge of the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office, Kevin Rojek, provided remarks during a media call that simply raise more questions. For example, Rojek explains that the “FBI is now in possession of the subject’s autopsy and toxicology reports from the coroner’s office.” Great. When did the FBI obtain the autopsy and toxicology reports from the coroner? Is Rojek referring to the Butler County Coroner or the Allegheny County Medical Examiner? People often confuse these two entities. Specificity would be helpful. It matters.

Forget the FBI. Use the Congressional Subpoena in Trump Assassination Investigation

Written by Sheila Matthews on August 26, 2024. Posted in Articles.

August 26, 2025

**Oliver Morrison 90.5 WESA U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee leads a tour of the site in Butler County where a shooter attempted to assassinate former President and presidential candidate Donald Trump.**

Two things are becoming abundantly clear regarding the “investigation” into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. First, nobody trusts the FBI. Secondly, everybody is complaining that the FBI is stonewalling and withholding information about the alleged shooter and, therefore, the entire sordid event is quickly turning into a Kennedy Assassination-like conspiracy. In other words, nobody trusts the FBI.

Oddly enough the biggest complainers are sitting on the singular investigative body that has the greatest ability to get information but hasn’t utilized its power. The House Bipartisan Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Former President Donald Trump has the ability to obtain crucial physical evidence, without the FBI’s permission, and remarkably has failed to act. If the FBI doesn’t want to play fair, there are other useful tools.