A reader emails: “Dear Dr. Hurd, my brother is 32. He doesn’t work. He, his wife and daughter live with our mother. They scrape by on disability, food stamps and our Mom’s generosity. I believe that his disrespect and mooching off our mother and late grandmother actually hastened our grandmother’s death.

“About a year ago he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. Since then I wonder if he’s legit or faking to collect disability. My feelings notwithstanding, do you think it’s possible to fake a diagnosis of that kind?”

Dear Reader, you wonder if your brother is mentally ill or just faking it. The answer is that it really doesn’t matter. You can acknowledge his problems if you so desire, but you should still hold him responsible for allowing his life get to this point.

Some health professionals will assert that your brother’s problems are entirely physical – that a “chemical imbalance” impacts his choices and his actions. But if that were true, then pills would easily cure all that ails us emotionally. No such miracle drug exists.

In trying to understand your brother, ask yourself, “What mistakes in his thinking make him act in self-defeating ways?” That’s how we hold people responsible. If his attitude is, “I can’t help it. I’m not responsible and everybody else owes me a living,” then you should indeed take issue with the way he thinks. If he says, “I know I think in irrational ways. I want to change so I can live a better life,” then he deserves credit for at least attempting to take responsibility for himself.

One takes responsibility by taking charge of his or her mind. That’s the goal of cognitive psychotherapy. If someone isn’t willing to take charge, then they have, in effect, given up. Some give up passively (“I’m beyond help”) and others in a more angry way (“I’m helpless and you had better take care of me!”). It sounds like your brother falls into the latter category. Because he’s overly emotional, he believes that there’s something wrong with him that he can’t be expected to fix. No wonder he’s angry and bitter. His erroneous conclusions led to his choice to mooch off your mother and be generally unpleasant.

Your mother and late grandmother helped facilitate the problem by buying into the same line of thinking. They viewed it as a false choice: Either he’s lying, or he’s physically ill. The truth is that we are the product of more than just brain chemistry. We’re the product of the way we view life, people and events. Anyone who’s even minimally intelligent can evaluate his or her own thinking. Sometimes it’s hard to do that alone. The psychiatrist who prescribed the medicine should have told your brother that he needed cognitive psychotherapy to figure out how to improve his thinking.

Going only on what you told me, I doubt that he’s faking. More likely he’s sad, angry and bitter. He has it easy by mooching off family and then attacking them verbally. He likely believes he has no choice but to be that way. Nobody ever challenged him to rise to a higher standard. This is his biggest problem, although he’ll never see it that way.

Of course, not every person labeled with a mental disorder is like your brother. There are as many different types of disorder labels as there are those without them. However, people with emotional issues often suffer from significant self-esteem problems and will tend to underestimate themselves. Health professionals, significant others and family who encourage this helplessness are doing them an injustice.

If he’s a victim of anything, he’s a victim of that insidious social trend. He has the power to liberate himself from that. If you want to help him and hold him responsible, that’s the way to do it. Tell your mother too.

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I caught Dr. Laura in an interview the other day, and was reminded why I treasure her. She was asked what people need today in order to cope — with their own personal lives, or with the state of society. She immediately had an answer: “Two things: optimism, and courage.”

It’s great advice. If you’re an optimist, you’ll see that stupidity has no place in life, because stupidity has no power. In your personal life, you drive it all away. Simply refuse to associate with stupid or toxic people or activities. In society, tune them out. Create your own rational, romantic, intelligent universe by feeding your mind only good stuff. With courage, you will shed all concern with what other people think.

Even today, most people are not stupid; they only think they’re supposed to pretend they’re stupid, because they fear the wrath of those who actually are. By laughing at the idiots and the idiocy all around us, resisting them and refusing to pretend any of the madness around you is actually truth, you terrify the bad people who want life to be miserable for all of us.

Even if (in the worst case) you fail or perish, optimism and courage will be your ultimate tribute to yourself and to all that made life valuable.

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If THIS becomes the face of America, there is no more America. Secede and start over with the people who remain rational taking control of their own lives, liberty and happiness. States and counties will have to become countries, because THIS and all it represents will be unsustainable. It started before her, and we have known it. Frankly, I think the breakup has already begun; after Trump either wins or loses, the divorce process will escalate. Don’t worry about the details. People free of a psychopathic national (globalist Communist) government will figure it out. THIS is intolerable and I know millions feel the same way: NO WAY IN HELL.

Israel is kicking ass against terrorists. The U.S. State Department screams murder. Kamala has suggested it’s time to cut off aid to Israel, but not to Iran and Hamas. The big news isn’t that the savages in charge of the Obama Harris Biden regime are antisemitic scum; that’s old news. The big news is that the U.S. is no longer relevant in world affairs. As it stands, Israel is more of a world power now than America. Leftists killed America. They infiltrated our schools, media, military, cities and culture and — well, just look at us. Yes, I support Trump’s effort to restore America. But the leftists (and RINOs) in charge of virtually everything will try to destroy Trump. It’s literally one man against nearly 100 percent of everything and everyone else. At some point, we the people must step up and decisively defeat the leftists destroying everything of value. Trump cannot do it all.

Trump Calls US “Occupied Territory” Under Harris (says a Newsmax headline). I have been calling the U.S. an occupied country since January 2021, in my posts. Now President Trump says it too. This is what I love about him; he always makes his way to the truth.

Leftist blowhards think they own everything. Stop being silent and question their lunacy — before they consolidate their dictatorship and make it impossible.

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Mike Van Meter, Candidate for Congress 11th district Virginia

I am a legal immigrant and naturalized US citizen who has been living in Fairfax County for 15 years. I came to the United States 20 years ago from a communist country. Having lived in both worlds, I appreciate this country and its founding principles, maybe much more than many Americans who were born and grew up here ever would. Therefore, I am very attuned to things that are happening in the United States  that are far from our nation’s founding principles.

We sometimes hear people warn, maybe hyperbolically, that if Kamala Harris is elected, America will turn into a communist/socialist country. I think many people here, myself included, do not believe that America would ever go full communist because after all, this country is still being run by the super rich donors and special interests, and being capitalists themselves, they will not let that happen. If anything, crony capitalism is a much bigger concern. What the Democrats are doing and the policies they are supporting are increasingly resembling those of a totalitarian regime, the kind of regime that all communist party ruled countries have. 

In a totalitarian regime, censorship is prevalent, you can’t say things that you are not allowed to say, at least not publicly. In a totalitarian regime, the ruling party goes after their political opponents and dissidents. In a totalitarian regime, coercion from the government is commonplace. If they tell you to do something, you can’t say no. What we witnessed during the 2020 Presidential election was the US government working in collusion with big tech companies and big media to censor people with different viewpoints on the Covid vaccine or those expressing doubts about the 2020 elections. They also suppressed information that was negative for the Biden campaign, like calling Hunter Biden’s laptop and the serious information it contains as Russian disinformation. They used Covid as an excuse to change election rules right before the election, bypassing the legislature, and carry out a 2020 election in an unprecedented manner with mass mail in ballots, and then vilifying individuals who doubted the election results. 

Democrats say Trump is a threat to democracy because he didn’t accept the results of the 2020 election. To be fair, had the 2020 election been done the same way it was always carried out, with one day election and in person voting, Trump wouldn’t have had much basis for not accepting the results of the election. In a totalitarian regime, elections are a joke, and if people here do not demand their elected officials to try their best to ensure election integrity, the country will soon be forever controlled by one party. That is not a good thing, as in countries that are ruled by one party, liberties are stiffened and corruption and lack of accountability are prevalent. We don’t want this in the United States.

I have also noticed the expansion of the nanny state and big government which is the antithesis of our founding principles as a nation. Up until 1935, there was not a built up Government based welfare system in the United States one welfare program was introduced at a time, and since the birth of the Great Society by Lyndon Johnson, welfare has become the norm, and to some, an entitlement. Now, even individuals who come here illegally can have access to welfare in one way or another. 

Since Joe Biden took office, the first thing he did was rescind several executive orders under the Trump Administration and opened the “floodgate” of southern border crossings, which has peaked to record high under his watch. Millions of individuals have flown into this country, given housing, money, and food stamps, etc. all at taxpayers’ expense. As a legal immigrant, I have never asked for one cent in the form of welfare. I went through the immigration process one step at at time, paid all the fees, even thousands of dollars for a medical checkup as a required step in order to get a green card, which is ridiculous given that I had been in the country on a work visa for years before that, and especially, when thousands of people a day have been crossing through the southern border without having to go through any medical examination. I think welfare as a necessary program to help citizens temporarily in difficult situations, or when they are permanently disabled or people in old age that have not saved enough to support themselves, but when it is used for any purposes other than that, it’s an abuse of taxpayer dollars and disincentivizes hard work and attracts even more illegal immigrants. 

It is disingenuous for the Democratic Party to mingle legal and illegal immigrants as one group and call Donald Trump and Republicans who want to secure the border and stop mass immigration racist, or equalize settlers and immigrants to this country in the early years, who received no welfare, and those who are coming here in the thousands every day. They are not the same. Cut welfare and the influx of illegal immigration will drop substantially. 

Fairfax County’s Congressman Gerry Connolly, is a staunch Democrat and his voting record is 100% in line with the Democratic Party, whether or not the proposed legislation is in the best interest of his constituents. He supports the Green New Deal, which would require 100 percent renewable-sourced electricity along with changing transportation and industry to eliminate the burning of carbon. That would mean closing every nuclear, coal, and natural gas plant, controlling every aspect of American lives and implementing broad, socialist policies. Such programs are unrealistic and estimated to cost trillions of dollars. He champions “environmental justice”, “racial justice”, which implies that this country is institutionally racist, and that somehow non-white people are oppressed and we need to vote for Democrats to fix that. People with leftwing ideology may agree with him, but such claims have no factual basis.  Connolly also introduced the Lady Liberty Act to institute a minimum of at least 125,000 refugees to be admitted to the country annually. What is that number based on? Why does it have to be a minimum but not maximum? What will a maximum be? 1 million? 10 million? Or 100 million? If millions of Haitians and Venezuelans can pour into this country, claiming asylums, many more can for the same reasons. There are more than 700 million people in the world  living under extreme poverty and unstable countries right now.  

Does Connolly intend to bring all of them here? How would that benefit his constituents and this country in general? While advocating for broad socialist programs and flooding this country with millions of migrants who do not wish to go through the official immigration system, Connolly, among 150 other Democrats, opposed legislation that would remove illegal immigrants convicted of rape and sexual assault from this country. He also opposed the Save Act, an election integrity bill that would require proof of citizenship for registering to vote, and in the aftermath of the horrific school shootings in Uvalde, TX and Nashville, TN, opposed several bills that would help fund enhanced school security measures across the country by using surplus Covid funds for those purposes.

The ultimate goal of and measure of ethics for elected officials should be serving, first and foremost, their constituents, not foreigners, not special interests. They should adhere to the Constitution and stay away from policies that are the antithesis of the country’s founding principles, unless they don’t really believe in them. However, for those of us who still cherish these values and principles and keep our Republic, we should pay attention and vote for representatives who uphold them.

Mike Van Meter is that candidate who is committed to securing the border and listening directly to the needs of Constituents in VA-11.

Ofir Akunis, the counsel general for Israel in New York, told Newsmax on Friday hailed Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

“Israel is saving the world,” Akunis said on “National Report.” “Sinwar … was the head of the snake in the Gaza Strip, and he is responsible for the October 7 massacre.”

Akunis quoted Winston Churchill, who said during World War II, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

“It’s very important that [Sinwar] is not with us anymore,” Akunis said. “But we need to defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip and to defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon. It’s not over until it’s over. We will defeat the terrorists.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday promised to press on with Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, dashing the hopes of some that the killing of Sinwar might help end more than a year of escalating conflict in the Middle East.

“The war, my dear ones, is not yet over,” Netanyahu told Israelis.

Akunis noted that Hamas is still holding 101 hostages.

“Innocent Israelis,” Akunis said. “American citizens as well. We want them with their families in their homeland. We need the international support.”

Netanyahu said the war will continue untily the hostages are released.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

Biden threatens Israel as if it’s an enemy, Kamala agrees with cutting off arms to Israel and where are all the Jews who vote Democrat?

Is America now a terrorist nation? With the current regime in charge, we are. This isn’t my country.

It just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?

Does anyone really think that Kamala and the regime will walk away if Trump wins? NO WAY. They will not go.

If you want to know what the Kamala puppet regime will look like, just look at the things they’re predicting Trump will do.

In the last 2 days alone, I have heard Kamala and other leftists predict that Trump will: round up people and imprison them based on race; treat the Constitution as a relic; set fire to ballot counting locations in swing states on election night; impose a dictatorship; prosecute and imprison political opponents; and wreck the nation.

Keep in mind that the existing Obama-Biden-Kamala regime already does all or most of these things. We have every rational reason to believe they will triple-down, if given the green light. The Trump administration, when in office, did NONE of these things.

How can decent, even semi-intelligent people hesitate to support Trump (a known defender of freedom) over an already existing regime imposing dictatorship in plain daylight?

Wake the hell up, people. It’s not a personality contest. It’s life-or-death.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!