| How to Beat a Rigged Game | |
| By Briton Ryle | Monday, May 2, 2016 | |
My son just turned 14. He’s in eighth grade. And I gotta share this story he told me with you…
This varsity baseball team at his school was the home team, playing a fierce rival. My son, Henry, was standing behind the backstop, so the ump, catcher, and batter were in front of him. His school’s team was at bat, and there was a man on first. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched high school baseball, but there tends to be a lot of base stealing in the high school game. So the man on first takes off. The catcher for the rival team gets the pitch and jumps up to make the throw to second to get the runner out. But as he cocks his arm to throw, my son says, just loudly enough to be heard, “Your shoe’s untied.” Well, that was enough to distract the catcher. He made a bad throw. And the runner for his school’s team was safe at second base. To make matters worse, the runner actually stumbled a little as he was running — he surely would have been out at second if Henry hadn’t said what he said… And to make matters really worse, the next batter hit a double to score the man on second — the home team was up 1–0. Of course, the ump had already told him to leave the area. And Henry got some pretty intense glares from the catcher and the other team. But the players in the home dugout were clapping, and the coach came out and shook his hand. I haven’t told his mom (my ex-wife) about this yet. I’m not sure she will think Henry’s actions were a good example of gamesmanship, as I do. And if he had yelled at the catcher, then yeah, that would not have been in the spirit of gamesmanship. But if you can throw someone off their game with a comment like that, well, you do it. Every time.
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How to Beat a Rigged Game
Democrats: It’s Time to Evolve!
Democrats: It’s Time to Evolve!
By Pat Hughes
Pop quiz: Which Democrat made the following statements?
People know that vast personal incomes come not only through the effort or ability or luck of those who receive them, but also because of the opportunities for advantage which Government itself contributes. Therefore, the duty rests upon the Government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.
The movement toward progressive taxation of wealth and of income has accompanied the growing diversification and interrelation of effort which marks our industrial society. Wealth in the modern world does not come merely from individual effort; it results from a combination of individual effort and of the manifold uses to which the community puts that effort. The individual does not create the product of his industry with his own hands; he utilizes the many processes and forces of mass production to meet the demands of a national and international market.
If you guessed Barak Obama you could be forgiven. He talks a lot like this (who could forget his declaration that, “if you have a business, you didn’t build that…”). Bernie Sanders didn’t utter these precise words either, although he uses much the same language and offers the same themes. Hillary Clinton would be a good guess too, but these aren’t her (or more precisely Huma’s) words.
You’d also be wrong, understandably so, if you guessed Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, or any of their minions in the Illinois General Assembly – including and especially Representative Lou Lang.
Any of them could have delivered this message – and in one form or another, all of them have, over and over again. It’s the Democrat message of 2016.
The correct answer, however, is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt, of course, didn’t deliver these words at a Bernie Sanders rally or Hillary Clinton fundraiser. He delivered them in a Message to Congress urging them to move the nation from a flat tax to a graduated –or progressive – income tax on June 19, 1935.
That was 81 years ago – the year Babe Ruth played his last game. Democrats have recycled this idea ever since. They haven’t even come up with new talking points.
Clinging to old prescriptions for modern ailments is a recipe for continued decline. In fact, in Illinois, families and businesses are forced to flee because ruling class politicians are so strictly bound to the old “Chicago Way” of doing business.
That old “Way” has led to the highest unfunded pension liability in the nation, the lowest credit rating in the nation, and the highest unemployment in the Midwest. Those who run Chicago, a world class city plagued by political corruption, have failed in the two main functions of government: to provide for the public safety (Chicago has logged more murders per capita than New York and Los Angeles combined) and to provide a general education (only 16% of children in Chicago Public Schools will graduate college-ready). Yet, they persist.
Instead of considering logical and proven reforms to reverse these problems, they recycle an 80-year old notion to raise taxes on the state’s already overburdened families and businesses. State Rep. Lou Lang has proposed a progressive tax increase claiming that this tax increase would affect only “the rich,” and that Illinois should follow the lead of other states that use a progressive-tax system. And what has happened in other states? Tax increases on “the rich” end up pounding the middle class for two reasons. First, there are not enough “rich” people to cover the cost of the Democrats’ largesse and mismanagement. Second, the rich—who are mobile—move their businesses, their investments and ultimately themselves out of state. The middle class then bears the pain of lost job creators and a weakening tax base.
Why not follow the lead of states that have implemented common-sense reforms, such as school choice, Medicaid reform, workers’ compensation and other labor reforms, and balanced budget reforms? States like our neighbors in Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana. Did those states suffer massive job loss, the destruction of worker unions, deficits and inflation, floods and locusts as many Democrats predicted? No. Their economies improved. Their deficits were reduced. The median wage rose. Businesses – many seeking refuge from Illinois – located or expanded in those states. And, importantly, economic opportunity grew more rapidly than it had in years.
So, contact your Democrat Representative or State Senator and tell them it’s time to evolve. Tell them to say, ‘No’ to Representative Lang’s tired, old progressive tax proposal and consider some more modern reforms or they will wind up not only repeating history, but being on the wrong side of it as well.
Don’t be fooled, says Sanders’ wife, he cares about the damn emails
Jane Sanders on Thursday night said it would “super nice” if the FBI would move a little more quickly on its investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email abuses at the State Department.“Right after the debate where he said, ‘enough of your damn emails,’ he also said, ‘there’s a process — it’s going forward,’” Sanders said of her husband’s remark at a Democratic presidential debate.
She added, “It’s an FBI investigation, and we want to let it go through without politicizing it and then we’ll find what the situation is. That’s how we still feel. I mean, it would be nice if the FBI moved it along.”
Earlier this year, FBI director James Comey said the agency is more focused on conducting a thorough investigation than it is a hasty one.
“The urgency is to do it well and do it promptly,” he said. “And well comes first. [I’m staying] close to this one to make sure we have the resources to do it competently.”
Meanwhile, Clinton’s email scandal continues to grow in terms of just how much government corruption was afoot on her behalf.
Judicial Watch revealed this week that the State Department withheld a key Benghazi email requested in a FOIA lawsuit nearly two years ago. The email in question would have made public Clinton’s private server use before the former top diplomat deleted tens of thousands of emails.
“Now we know the Obama administration consciously refused to give up key information about Hillary Clinton’s email in 2014. It covered up this email both from the court and Judicial Watch,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This cover-up provided Hillary Clinton enough time to hide potentially thousands of government records. One aim of our court-order discovery will be to get to the bottom of this cover-up.”
Update on Clinton Benghazi Email cover-ups
Obama State Department Hid Key Clinton Benghazi Email from Judicial Watch 4/30/2016
It has taken several years of persistent legal pressure from Judicial Watch even to begin to expose Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. This week, for example, we reported that we could have known about her email games two years ago, had the State Department not covered a key email responsive to a JW Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The Obama State Department admitted last week that it withheld a key Benghazi email of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from Judicial Watch since at least September 2014. Had the department disclosed the email when first supposedly found, Clinton’s email server and her hidden emails would have been revealed before she authorized the alleged deletion of tens of thousands of emails.
This development comes in our July 2014 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)lawsuit seeking records related to the drafting and use of the Benghazi talking points (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). The lawsuit, which forced the disclosure of the Clinton email records, seeks records specifically from Clinton and her top State Department staff:
Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency.
Contradicting an earlier statement to the court, an April 18, 2016, State Department letter admits that it found the email at issue in 2014 but that it was held back in its entirety:
Also, upon further review, the Department has determined that one document previously withheld in full in our letter dated November 12, 2014 may now be released in part.
The referenced November 12, 2014, letter does not discuss any withheld emails. Asearch declaration suggests the hidden email was found in September 2014 as a result of a search in response to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.
The September 29, 2012, email to Clinton from then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan concerns talking points for Clinton calls with senators about the Benghazi attack. The email contains Clinton’s non-state.gov address.
Last week’s document production also includes material from a records cache of thousands of new Clinton State Department records supposedly only discovered in December 2015. The new material shows the State Department compiled extensive Libya/Benghazi-related dossiers on Republican and Democrat senators.
The result of all this is that we now know that the Obama administration consciously refused to give up key information about Hillary Clinton’s email in 2014. It covered up this email both from the court and Judicial Watch.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth was right when he suggested that Obama’s State Department acted in bad faith. This cover-up provided Hillary Clinton enough time to hide potentially thousands of government records. One aim of our court-order discovery will be to get to the bottom of this cover-up.
Our disclosure of the State Department’s mendacity led to some pushback this week from the agency. The agency first told the press and then sent us a letter suggesting we were “confused.” Here’s what the Obama State Department spokesman told the press:
So we don’t generally comment on matters of litigation, but in this case, there has been some confusion about – or rising from what was an administrative error in the correspondence in which the department said that the document in question was withheld on November – in November 2014, and that date was incorrect. So all the facts in this case or this – the complete facts, rather, surrounding this document are actually in a court filing, a public court filing from July 2015. And we would recommend that folks who are interested would look at that court filing.
But in summary, it describes that the department received the documents in June 2015 from members of former Secretary Clinton’s senior staff and did not withhold it until that time. So there’s a pretty big discrepancy in the dates there and we regret, obviously, any confusion that was caused by our error in correspondence.
The letter we received supposedly correcting the record is even more incomprehensible. The Clinton email in question wasn’t received or uncovered in 2015 – that is when the State Department first told us they had a Clinton Benghazi email but were withholding it in its entirety. The poor State Department can’t even keep track of its cover-ups.
These shifting and shifty Clinton email explanations by the State Department is why two frustrated federal court judges granted Judicial Watch discovery in the Clinton email matter.
New Benghazi Documents Reveal September 11, 2012, Hillary Clinton ‘Call Sheet’ Describes Benghazi Assault as Attack by ‘Armed Extremists’
The duplicity of the Obama administration, including its former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, regarding Benghazi seems to know no bounds.
This week we released new State Department documents that contain a “call sheet” background document for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that called the Benghazi attackers “armed extremists.” This was on the day of the attack.
The documents were obtained under a court order in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on September 4, 2014, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)), seeking:
All records related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. special mission compound in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.
A September 11, 2012, call sheet states:
“Armed extremists attacked U.S. [special mission compound in] Benghazi on September 11, setting fire to the Principal Officer’s Residence and killing at least one American mission staff, Information Management Officer Sean Smith, on TDY from The Hague.”
In an unusual move, the State Department is withholding the identity of the foreign leader for whom the Benghazi background information was prepared. Why does the Obama administration want to keep secret the identity of the person on the other end of Hillary Clinton’s phone call?
The documents also include a copy of Hillary Clinton’s schedule showing she met with then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice and attended a meeting in the White House situation room before the now controversial arrival ceremony for the remains of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty.
The families of those killed at Benghazi claim that at the memorial service Clinton blamed an Internet video for the attack. She is alleged to have promised the father of Tyrone Woods to “have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of your son.” Given the timing of the Susan Rice and White House meetings, one has to ask if the video lie was discussed as they prepared for the political perilous task of having to account to the victims’ families.
Days after her weekly meeting with Clinton, Rice appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News and CNN, still claiming the assaults occurred “spontaneously” in response to the “hateful video.” On Sunday, September 16 Rice told CBS’s “Face the Nation“:
But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy-sparked by this hateful video.
In 2014, Judicial Watch famously uncovered that Rice’s talking points originated with the Obama White House. This directly led to the creation of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
This is the second production of documents from a records cache of thousands of new Clinton State Department records supposedly only discovered in December 2015. The first batch of records, released earlier this month by Judicial Watch, include documents from the Department of State containing the telephone transcripts from the evening of September 11, 2012, in which then-Secretary of State Clinton informs then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi “had nothing to do with the film.”
Those documents include previously unreleased telephone transcripts with world leaders about the Benghazi attack. As The Washington Free Beacon first noted, the State Department admitted in a court filing in a related case that the records were removed from the secretary of state’s office in April 2015, despite pending congressional subpoenas and Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits.
It’s little wonder that the Obama administration hid these documents for nearly four years. These new Benghazi documents show again that Hillary Clinton was told that “extremists” – the Obama administration’s term for terrorists – were behind the Benghazi attack.
Her curiously timed meetings with Rice and the White House just before she personally lied to the Benghazi victims’ families again bring the Obama White House into the center of the continuing scandal.
Sure I can afford it/ They're Paying
In 2015 alone, Illinois state government redistributed more than $12 billion in income and other taxes to local governments. These financial shell games have created a needlessly complex system and make it difficult for local taxpayers to hold their governments accountable.
The Illinois Department of Revenue announced April 19 that the department erroneously made $168 million in overpayments to local governments and school districts across the state. The error occurred while the department executed its tax redistribution program, which sends certain state tax collections to local governments.
The error will soon be corrected; but the real issue is the state shouldn’t make these kinds of tax redistributions in the first place.
Here’s how it has worked for decades:
One unit of government imposes a tax, while another unit of government gets to spend the money. Illinoisans pay income tax to state government, but a part of those collections are redistributed to local governments. That’s precisely what happens under “shared agreements” between the state and local governments. The state government imposes and collects certain taxes and then redistributes them to local governments based on various formulas.
This setup makes it difficult for local taxpayers to hold their governments accountable. Local officials get to spend money they don’t raise locally, while state legislators gain control over billions of dollars that were never meant for the state coffers in the first place.
In a state with nearly 7,000 units of local government, this situation provides ample opportunity for politicians to shield themselves from accountability for levying taxes and spending that money.
In 2015 alone, Illinois state government redistributed more than $12.2 billion in income and other taxes to local governments. That total includes $6.6 billion in education funding for K-12 classrooms and another $5.6 billion the state sent back to local governments for their operations.
For education, the argument for redistribution is that those funds are based on need – that, in general, the poorest districts get a disproportionate share of state funds.
But the remaining $5.6 billion is simply reallocated back to localities based on either their share of the state’s total population or where the tax originated, with no true connection to need.
Under this redistribution practice, there are four major sources of tax revenue the state sends to local governments:
The personal property replacement tax, or PPRT, is an income tax on businesses in addition to the general corporate income tax. In 2015, the state collected $1.4 billion in PPRT, and then redistributed that amount to local governments based on each locality’s historic (as of 1977) pro rata share of those collections.
The local government distributive fund, or LGDF, is based on state personal and corporate income taxes, apart from what’s collected under the PPRT. Of the total 2015 income tax collections, $1.5 billion was deposited into LGDF for further distribution. Local governments receive LGDF funds based on their pro rata share of the state’s population.
The third redistribution payment is based on a portion of the state sales tax. One percentage point of the statewide 6.25 percent sales tax is collected and sent back to the municipalities where those sales occurred. These distributions totaled $2.2 billion in 2015.
Finally, the motor fuel tax resulted in $1.2 billion in revenues collected across the state. Just under 40 percent, or $471.3 million of net collections, was sent to municipalities and counties based on their pro rata share of statewide population.
If governments across Illinois are to be held accountable for how they use tax dollars, lawmakers need to stop the financial shell games that have plagued this state for decades. Illinois can start by eliminating the LGDF, the sharing agreement most targeted for reform in recent years.
However, as these agreements go away, so will the money. That means local governments will need to find savings through spending reforms or by prioritizing the services that warrant funding through local taxes.
A reduction in shared agreements should also be offset with other major reforms to reduce the costs borne by local government. These include:
Reducing workers’ compensation costs
Repealing Illinois’ prevailing-wage law
Reforming the collective bargaining process
Reducing unfunded state mandates
The state of Illinois’ financial shell games have created a needlessly complex system and make it difficult for local taxpayers to hold their governments accountable. If lawmakers are serious about fixing the state’s finances, they need to start by focusing accountability for local tax dollars back onto local governments.
TAGS: LGDF: Local Government Distributive Fund, local government, PPRT: Personal Property Replacement Tax, taxes
Cartels Help Terrorists in Mexico Get to U.S.
Cartels Help Terrorists in Mexico Get to U.S. to Explore Targets; ISIS Militant Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir among Them
Judicial Watch 4/30/2016
Our Corruption Chronicles blog is the place to go to see the truth about the existential national security threat from our nation’s largely unprotected and thoroughly compromised southern border. The report we put this week will have you wondering if anyone here in DC – Republican or Democrat – is thinking about our nation’s safety:
Mexican drug traffickers help Islamic terrorists stationed in Mexico cross into the United States to explore targets for future attacks, according to information forwarded to Judicial Watch by a high-ranking Homeland Security official in a border state. Among the jihadists that travel back and forth through the porous southern border is a Kuwaiti named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso, Texas. Khabir trained hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen and has lived in Mexico for more than a year, according to information provided by JW’s government source.
Now Khabir trains thousands of men-mostly Syrians and Yemenis-to fight in an ISIS base situated in the Mexico-U.S. border region near Ciudad Juárez, the intelligence gathered by JW’s source reveals. Staking out U.S. targets is not difficult and Khabir actually brags in anItalian newspaper article published last week that the border region is so open that he “could get in with a handful of men, and kill thousands of people in Texas or in Arizona in the space of a few hours.” Foreign Affairs Secretary Claudia Ruiz, Mexico’s top diplomat, says in the article that she doesn’t understand why the Obama administration and the U.S. media are “culpably neglecting this phenomenon,” adding that “this new wave of fundamentalism could have nasty surprises in store for the United States.”
This disturbing development appears on the Open Source Enterprise, the government database that collects and analyzes valuable material from worldwide print, broadcast and online media sources for the U.S. intelligence community. Only registered federal, state and local government employees can view information and analysis in the vast database and unauthorized access can lead to criminal charges. Updated data gathered on Khabir reveals he’s 52 years old and was ordered to leave Kuwait about a decade ago over his extremist positions. Khabir is currently on ISIS’s (also known as ISIL) payroll and operates a cell in an area of Mexico known as Anapra, according to the recently obtained information.
A year ago Judicial Watch reported on an ISIS camp in this exact area, just a few miles from El Paso. JW’s April 14, 2015 report identified Anapra as the location of the ISIS base, details that were provided to JW by sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector. Anapra is situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. At the time JW reported that another ISIS cell was established to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas to target the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming. Sources told JW that, during the course of a joint operation, Mexican Army and federal law enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as “plans” of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation that houses the US Army’s 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation.
A few months later JW reported that Mexican drug cartels are smuggling Middle Eastern terrorists into a small Texas rural town near El Paso and that they’re using remote farm roads-rather than interstates-to elude the Border Patrol and other law enforcement barriers. The foreigners are classified by the U.S. government as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) and they are transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs wait for pick-up in the area’s sand hills just across Highway 20. At the time JW’s government sources revealed that terrorists have long entered the U.S. through Mexico and in fact, an internal Texas Department of Public Safety report leaked by the media documents that several members of known Islamist terrorist organizations have been apprehended crossing the southern border in recent years.
Earlier this year, as part of an ongoing investigation into national security risks in the porous southern border, JW obtained evidence that proves the U.S. government has known for more than a decade about the partnership between terrorists and Mexican drug cartels. State Department documents made public by JW in January say that for at least ten years “Arab extremists” have entered the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells.” Among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. Some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States, the government documents say. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in the September 2004 cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. The cable was released to Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
We see debate in the presidential campaign about building a wall with Mexico but our reporting suggests the debate ought to focus on more immediate security measures such as the deployment of our military to secure the border. We’ll keep on the alert for you. In the meantime, please share the word and perhaps ask your elected officials why they’re AWOL on border security in the face of this potentially catastrophic threat from Islamic terrorists.
Carol Ann Parisi to be his Co-Host on THE STEVE BEAMAN SHOW Premiering Sunday 8pm on AM 560 WIND
Visit THE GREAT AWAKENING at: http://thegreatawakening.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network To control which emails you receive on THE GREAT AWAKENING, click here
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Dan Proft:"It's despicable what he's [Hastert] done
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Homer 33C Students catapult into critical thinking
News Release
Homer CCSD 33C
Goodings Grove Luther J. Schilling William E. Young William J. Butler
Hadley Middle Homer Jr. High
Contact: Charla Brautigam, Communications/Public Relations Manager
cbrautigam@homerschools.org | 708-226-7628
Young School students use their critical and innovative thinking skills to build a catapult from tongue depressors, plastic spoons and rubber bands.
For Immediate Release:
April 27, 2016
Students catapult into critical thinking
An all-school challenge put critical thinking skills to the test recently at Young School.
Students were given a variety of materials, such as tongue depressors, plastic spoons and rubber bands, to work with and fashion into a catapult.
They worked in pairs, brainstorming ideas and working together to create something that would launch small items. Afterward, they took turns seeing how far their contraptions could send items flying.
The activity was tied to the school’s goal of fostering critical thinking skills and innovative thinking skills — two essential components to preparing Future Ready Students.
Young School students see how far their catapults can launch items.
“We hope that by incorporating these educational activities, students will come to understand that although learning is challenging, it can also be fun,” said Principal Michael Szopinski.
“We want them to see that success comes from persistence,” he added.
For inspiration, students gathered for an outdoor assembly the day before their big experiment and watched as Young School parent and his son (who attends Young) launched watermelons from a catapult that they designed and built.
Students cheered as each watermelon sailed through the air and landed with a splat.
A Young School parent and his son inspire students to tap into their critical and innovative thinking skills by showing them a catapult that they designed and built.
Many went home thinking about how they could top it the next day with their own catapult.
The catapult experiment was the second all-school challenge faced by Young School students this year.
In December, students were given toothpicks and a scoop of clay to build a structure that would support two small rocks. The activity rocks had to be at least three inches (the length of the toothpick) off the ground.
“Sometimes, you’re not going to achieve your goal on the first try,” Szopinski told students before each challenge. “Learning takes a lot of tries.”
Both activities were tied to the school’s goal of fostering critical thinking skills and innovative thinking skills — two essential components to preparing Future Ready Students.
“We want students to realize that learning is challenging and takes many attempts for success,” said Szopinski. “We encourage students to keep persisting.”
Insomnia treatment: Cognitive behavioral therapy instead of sleeping pills
Insomnia treatment: Cognitive behavioral therapy instead of sleeping pills
Insomnia is a serious disorder, and effective treatment can be crucial to getting the sleep you need. Explore safe, effective, nondrug insomnia treatments.
Insomnia is a common problem characterized by trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or getting restful sleep, despite the opportunity for adequate sleep. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, often called CBT-I, is an effective insomnia treatment for chronic sleep problems.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is a structured program that helps you identify and replace thoughts and behaviors that cause or worsen sleep problems with habits that promote sound sleep. Unlike sleeping pills, CBT-I helps you overcome the underlying causes of your sleep problems.
To make effective changes, it’s important to understand sleep cycles and learn how beliefs, behaviors and outside factors can affect your sleep. To help decide how to best treat your insomnia, your sleep therapist may have you keep a detailed sleep diary for one to two weeks.
How does cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia work?
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia aims to improve sleep habits and behaviors. The cognitive part of CBT-I teaches you to recognize and change beliefs that affect your ability to sleep. For instance, this may include learning how to control or eliminate negative thoughts and worries that keep you awake. The behavioral part of CBT-I helps you develop good sleep habits and avoid behaviors that keep you from sleeping well.
Depending on your needs, your sleep therapist may recommend some of these CBT-I techniques:
- Stimulus control therapy. This method helps remove factors that condition the mind to resist sleep. For example, you might be coached to set a consistent bedtime and wake time and avoid naps, use the bed only for sleep and sex, and leave the bedroom if you can’t go to sleep within 20 minutes, only returning when you’re sleepy.
- Sleep restriction. Lying in bed when you’re awake can become a habit that leads to poor sleep. This treatment decreases the time you spend in bed, causing partial sleep deprivation, which makes you more tired the next night. Once your sleep has improved, your time in bed is gradually increased.
- Sleep hygiene. This method of therapy involves changing basic lifestyle habits that influence sleep, such as smoking or drinking too much caffeine late in the day, drinking too much alcohol, or not getting regular exercise. It also includes tips that help you sleep better, such as ways to wind down an hour or two before bedtime.
- Sleep environment improvement. This offers ways that you can create a comfortable sleep environment, such as keeping your bedroom quiet, dark and cool, not having a TV in the bedroom, and hiding the clock from view.
- Relaxation training. This method helps you calm your mind and body. Approaches include meditation, imagery, muscle relaxation and others.
- Remaining passively awake. Also called paradoxical intention, this involves avoiding any effort to fall asleep. Paradoxically, worrying that you can’t sleep can actually keep you awake. Letting go of this worry can help you relax and make it easier to fall asleep.
- Biofeedback. This method allows you to observe biological signs such as heart rate and muscle tension and shows you how to adjust them. Your sleep specialist may have you take a biofeedback device home to record your daily patterns. This information can help identify patterns that affect sleep.
The most effective treatment approach may combine several of these methods.
Cognitive behavioral therapy vs. pills
Sleep medications can be an effective short-term treatment — for example, they can provide immediate relief during a period of high stress or grief. Some newer sleeping medications have been approved for long-term use. But they may not be the best long-term insomnia treatment.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia may be a good treatment choice if you have long-term sleep problems. You may want to try it if you’re worried about becoming dependent on sleep medications, if medications aren’t effective or if they cause bothersome side effects.
Unlike pills, CBT-I addresses the underlying causes of insomnia rather than just relieving symptoms. But it takes time — and effort — to make it work. In some cases, a combination of sleep medication and CBT-I may be the best approach.
Insomnia and other disorders
Insomnia is linked to a number of physical and mental health disorders and substance abuse. Ongoing lack of sleep increases your risk of illness and infection, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and chronic pain. Some medications also can contribute to insomnia.
If you have a condition or medication that’s linked to insomnia, talk to your doctor about how best to manage these along with sleep problems. Insomnia is unlikely to get better without treatment.
Finding help
There are a limited number of certified Behavioral Sleep Medicine specialists, and you may not live near a practitioner. You may have to do some searching to find a trained practitioner and a treatment schedule and type that fit your needs. Here are some places to look:
- The American Academy of Sleep Medicine website allows you to search for a certified sleep center, such as the Mayo Clinic Center for Sleep Medicine, when you click on Patient Health Information.
- The Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine offers a directory for finding a Behavioral Sleep Medicine provider.
- The National Sleep Foundation website offers information about finding a sleep professional. Many are associated with major hospitals.
- The American Board of Sleep Medicine offers information about Behavioral Sleep Medicine specialists on its website.
The type of treatment — such as group versus individual — and frequency of sessions can vary, depending on whom you see. You may need as few as two sessions or as many as eight or more sessions, depending on your sleep expert, the program and your progress.
When calling to set up an appointment, ask the practitioner about his or her approach and what to expect. It’s also a good idea to check ahead of time whether your health insurance will cover the type of treatment you need.
Books, CDs or websites on cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and insomnia may be beneficial, but they can’t replace meeting with a sleep medicine specialist in person.
Who can benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia?
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia can benefit nearly anyone with sleep problems. For example, the therapy can help older adults who have been taking sleep medications for years, people with physical problems such as chronic pain and those with primary insomnia. What’s more, the effects seem to last. There is no evidence that CBT-I has negative side effects.
CBT-I requires steady practice, and some approaches may cause you to lose sleep at first. But stick with it, and you’ll likely see lasting results.
