Fiction as Fact

From the Twitterverse:

Cecil Richards: Birth Control is basic health care used by 99% of women - unbelievable that we're fighting for it in 2014. #NotMyBossesBusiness

Lena Dunham: Women's access to birth control should not be denied because of their employer's religious belief.

Nancy Pelosi: Allowing CEO's to limit the medical procedures available to employees is a gross violating of workers religious rights.

Elizabeth Warren: Can't believe we live in a world where we'd even consider letting big corps deny women access to basic care based on vague moral objections.


I could go on, but it's not necessary.  Just those four tweets alone give me enough to write about, and that doesn't include all the facebook comments I had the pleasure *cough cough* of reading today.

I am simply amazed at either the wholesale lying, complete disregard for facts, or just plain low-information idiocy that has been connected to the Supreme Court decision today in the cases of both Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood. 

 Legally, this was a very narrowly structured decision, relating to contraception methods that could be considered abortifacients.  The majority opinion went so far as to say other medical procedures or medications were NOT covered by this decision, and by the way, at no point did the Supreme Court give carte blanche for corporations to deny employment or rights to gay people.  Let's just start with that.  The decision was based on closely held corporations, not large broad public corporations.  It is about as narrow of a decision as you can get.  Try finding a few reputable, non-partisan, SCOTUS related sites.  

At no point is anyone denied access to any method of contraception.   If they allowed your only local pharmacy to refuse to carry a product, that could be interpreted as denying access.  However, if you can go to a doctor and get an IUD put in, or you can go to your local pharmacy and get Plan B, you have access.  All that anyone was denied was the right to have someone else pay for it.

This is not a blow to women's rights.  Let me know where you find a right to free contraception in the Constitution.  

Also, for those of you who would like to comment and say "it's not my bosses business", and my favorite "stay out of my vagina", then explain why you are expecting them to pay for something that is none of their business and that they need to stay out of.

Those are the best arguments I've seen.

Here are a few that totally blow me away, to the point of complete insanity.

"Christians should be ashamed that these people are hiding behind the Bible."

"Hobby Lobby are a bunch of hypocrites because they invest in companies that provide the drugs they refuse to pay for and also companies that supply medical equipment necessary for abortions."

"The idea that Corporations are people is scary."

If Christians are ashamed that someone is taking a stand about their Bible-based beliefs, then those Christians ought to spend some time 1) reading the Bible and 2) praying.  You can disagree with them on the basis of Christian liberty, but I'm pretty sure taking a stand is an integral part of the Bible.  And you don't stop taking a stand simply because you happen to have the nerve to own a business.  Somehow, I fail to see God accepting the excuse "well, I didn't think that I should say anything or fight against that because I incorporated my business".  

Hobby Lobby has investments in both pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies through 401K's provided to their employees.  This comes from a recent Mother Jones "expose", and a Forbes editorial calling them hypocrites.  Let me mention, that as far as I know, Hobby Lobby does not have corporate investments in these companies.  The only investments they have in these businesses is through a 401K, that is, most likely, administered by an outside investment company.  I do not know how their 401K is set up.  I know that with my husband's, we were able to choose certain companies to invest our money in.  The choice was ours, and any matching funds from his company were simply distributed to the companies we chose in the amount we chose.  Other investment firms just have a standard plan where they choose the investments.  And yes, Hobby Lobby matches employee donations, but as part of the employees salary, that is their money to do with as they please.  As far as I am aware, the Hobby Lobby Corporation itself is not making money off of investments to these businesses, but even if they were, they are investing in companies that produce a wide variety of drugs and medical equipment.  And some of the same medical equipment used in abortions is also use in heart, brain, lung, and other surgeries.  A suction isn't bad simply because it's used in abortion.  It may also be used in removing blood clots.  If we all stopped buying products from a company because we dislike something else they sell, we'd stop buying pretty much...everything.  Hobby Lobby is no more hypocritical than those people screaming for privacy in the bedroom while demanding someone else pay for their actions in the bedroom.

What is a corporation? A corporation is a group of people, in association, who have certain powers and liabilities as that association distinct from it's members as individuals.  The most common reason for incorporating is so that the individuals are not assessed the liabilities.  The "corporation" is.  Also, as such the individuals assets are not the corporations assets.  But a corporations is made up of individual people, and as far as I'm aware, those people don't cease to have rights simply because they own a business and wanted their personal assets and liabilities separate from that of their business.  Especially in the case of small businesses that are not owned by the broader public, they have more leeway as to how their business is run.  They don't necessarily have to answer to hundreds or even thousands of individual investors.  If you work for a corporation, you are still a person.  Unless you'd like to give up personhood, as you seem to think that those people at the top of the food chain ought to do.  If corporations are forced to give up their first amendment protections, then they should also be forced to give up all the other ones.  And if you think this case was the nail in the coffin to that, you missed a bigger decision on this several years ago.

That case was Citizens United Vs. FEC.  And in that decision, the Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional to deny corporations and labor unions, whether for profit or non-profit, the right to political speech.  (It did not change the campaign donation laws, however, if the corporation or union in question wanted to produce their own political advertisement, they were entitled to do so under the First Amendment.)  In this free speech case, the Supreme Court treated corporations as individuals afforded the protections given to individual people in our Constitution.  

So scary, for those who think the whole corporations as people is scary, happened 4 years ago.  

My feeling is that the basis for the outrage is because this case was based in religious beliefs.  More and more, in America, the freedom to practice religion, is under attack, unless you practice it in a closet somewhere, where no one else can see you (and therefore not be offended by you).  At least if you are a Christian.  

You can object to the decision based on it's merits, but the objections made based on fear-mongering statements that contain nothing remotely close to fact?  They are hollow and will not wash with the majority of people who actually know the facts.  Try actually looking them up, please?

*side note:  Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood will both supply 16 forms of contraception.

*side note2: The second set of "facts" is not sourced, as most of those were on my personal facebook, and I have no desire to out people in public who may wish to remain private.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Abortion is a passionate topic for me.  I am very anti-abortion.  I refuse to use the terms "pro-life" (because I am also pro-death penalty) or "pro-choice (that term is innocuous and wrong.  So many pro-choice people are only pro-choice about abortion).   I think if we are going to have an honest discussion about abortion, we have to be honest about the whole thing.  Throw off the pretty terms and state the truth.  So, I am very much anti-abortion.  If someone on the other side wishes to call me anti-choice, so be it.  They won't hurt my feelings. (I am totally pro-choice in a whole lot of other areas that don't include killing innocent unborn children.)  I tend to get loud when discussing abortion, and specifically Planned Parenthood.  

My problem with Planned Parenthood is that they are billed as a women's health services organization, but really, they are mostly concerned with women's reproductive systems.  In all fairness, that makes them about the same as your OB/GYN.  This isn't necessarily a problem, it's just highly dishonest advertising.  They mainly concern themselves with birth control, pelvic exams, STD screening, and abortion.  They are the largest abortion provider in the U.S.  

My biggest issue with Planned Parenthood stems from it's origins.  It was started by a woman named Margaret Sanger, and she was a rabid eugenicist who believed in forced sterilization, birth control and abortion for minorities, religious people, and basically anyone she deemed unfit to procreate.  

 We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities.  The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
~Margaret Sanger in Women, Morality and Birth Control

Essentially, Planned Parenthood was based on the idea that getting rid of non-whites and whites with less intelligence than Ms. Sanger herself, was a fabulous idea.  Eugenics would become a cornerstone of Hitler's Third Reich.  Yes, I just compared Sanger to Hitler, and with a little bit of research into what she believed, the comparison is not hard to make.

Maybe today's Planned Parenthood leaders are not as overtly into eugenics as their esteemed founder, but little has been done to change that mission.  When Kermit Gosnell was arrested for murder (and previously sued for wrongful death), it wasn't white women and their unborn children he was butchering.  For more than 20 years he preyed on the less fortunate minorities in Philadelphia.  

80% of Planned Parenthood clinics are in minority neighborhoods.  Around 60% are in majority black neighborhoods.  

While black women make up just 13% of the population, they account for 37% of the abortions in this country. 

White people make up more than 70% of our population, yet account for only 34% of all abortions.  Minorities account for the other 66% (yes, my 70% figure is not as far off as I thought).  

Seems to me that Sanger's plan is moving along just fine, even though she's long gone.

A few more numbers that might interest you:

Planned parenthood claims that only 3% of their services are abortion.  That number is highly misleading.  In the case of abortion, they count all appointments as one service.  (Consultation, abortion procedure and any followup).  If you get your birth control through PP for an entire year, each month is counted as an individual service.  3 visits for abortion, 1 service.  12 packs of birth control, 12 services.  (Just a little misleading.)  And while not using their misleading statistics still only gives abortion a 12% rate of service, 1/3 of all their clinic revenue  most likely comes from....abortion.  (We can't be sure, because their statements are vague on where exactly their revenue comes from.)  Planned Parenthood claims to do breast cancer screening, however, that is a breast exam, similar to the one you get during your annual OB/GYN appointment.  (Or, one you can do at home.)  PP does not do mammograms.  They refer you to someone who does, the same way your OB or GP would do.  On top of that, the recommendation for mammograms is for people over 50 (currently).  The majority of Planned Parenthood's customer base is a whole lot younger than that.  Good business sense would say that providing mammograms would not be cost affective for an organization like PP.  

The numbers don 't lie.  And I'd love to have an honest discussion about abortion, where we admit that it unfairly targets minorities, and that Planned Parenthood plays a big roll in that issue.

*This whole though process was brought up as my daughter was working on studying for her AP Political Science Exam.  She was asked to point to something that denied a minority civil rights.  I thought abortion fit the question well, since it overwhelmingly denies the basic right of life to the minority population of the U.S.





 

In Which Amy Makes People Angry

I am almost positive that part of this post will make a lot of people angry.  I was involved in a discussion on another site recently where the topic was "Rape Culture". 

I will start off by mentioning that I hate that term.  Part of the reason is, because until last night, I failed to fully understand the term.  Seriously, what the heck is "rape culture"?  Who determines what the definition is?  I have found several definitions, but I will post the one from Marshall University.

 Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture.  Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.

I can admit that in times past, and still in other countries, rape is not treated as a crime.  However, if you live in the great USA, rape is a crime, and has been for quite some time.  I would also mention that our culture, while overtly sexual (and later we'll discuss how that fits into all this), is not a culture that condones or normalizes rape.  If you really think about it, if you even tried to normalize rape you'd be tarred and feathered in a public square.

Misogyny is defined as hatred for women.  I have this feeling that I need to explain this definition. It means someone who hates women, simply because they are women.   My need to explain this may stem from the fact that modern feminists believe if you dislike any woman, or even a certain type of woman, it makes you misogynistic.  (In the same way that some people think if you dislike a single black person you must be a racist.)  In the simple definition of misogyny, I think it's clear what would qualify as misogynistic language.  It's language that directs hate at a women or group of women, based on the simple fact that they are female.   I sit here and think of the last 5 television shows I watched (since media is pointed to as one of the places that rape culture is normalized and excused).  Grey's Anatomy - where Christina Yang was just nominated for a prestigious award and offered her dream job.  Modern Family - where Phil is the bumbling idiot and his wife Claire is smarter, more together and just plain better.  House - where House is a jerk, Chase is a pretty boy with a complex, Foreman is egotistical, and Cameron, the female is caring, wonderful and perfect. (House, by the way, is a feminist's dream example of misogyny.)  Justified - where the criminal mastermind is a woman, who has spent plenty of years selling drugs and running a local organized crime syndicate and her goofball son is the one who destroyed it.  Continuum, where the lead, Kyra is a strong female police officer who basically can conquer the world all on her own.  Not seeing any misogyny there.  In reverse, I would generally say, with the exception of Grey's Anatomy (who treats men as smart and capable, of course, they are mostly surgeons so they have to be), modern television elevates the woman at the expense of men.

The objectification of women's bodies is something that I have a slight issue with, although not in the same way that other people do.  I think it's perfectly fine for a man to appreciate a beautiful woman he sees on TV or in the mall or at the local grocery store (or what he thinks is a beautiful woman).   That's how guys are wired.  But where is all the outcry over the beautiful naked women on the covers of pornography magazines, who are there solely to be objectified.  How about the ones in the movies that you have to get in stores where 18 is the minimum age for even stepping foot in the store?  How about the whores on the street corner?  Or the girls who waitress at Hooters?  All of those things are extreme objectification of a women's body, and yet time after time, the loudest voices yelling about rape culture will at the very least keep silent about those things, and at the worst?  Defend a women's right to participate in them.  Rape culture out of one side of the mouth, defense of a women's right to be objectified out of the other.  In normal circles we call this hypocrisy.

Maybe I don't travel in the same circles as other people, but I have never seen the glamorization of sexual violence.    I have seen the violence portrayed in a sexual light.  I think that happens all the time.  Violence is sexy!  Who didn't think Uma Thurman was sexy as anything in Kill Bill?  You know the movie where she stabs, slices, shoots, and beats people to death?  A lot of people. Rape Culture crazies can come talk to me about rape culture when they are decrying that.

According to Marshall, these three things disregard women's rights and women's safety.  

However, these same people who are screaming, wailing and having apoplexy over "rape culture" will tell you that condom distribution outweighs teaching kids that abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy and STDs.  

Remember when I mentioned our overtly sexual culture?   This culture encourages kids, at younger and younger ages, to be sexually active.  This culture uses sex to sell almost anything.  We have a hypersexual culture.  And much of that was started and encouraged by the very people who scream about rape culture.  Free love (which turned out to be disease ridden love), sex is just a natural physical reaction (have it all you want, with whoever you want, no commitment necessary), women can do anything guys can do (including become the go-to sex kitten at the Friday night party).  These same people sold the culture on the fact that outside of the sexual organs, men and women are biologically the same.  And while equal pay and equal rights are awesome goals, it wasn't just about that.  That movement has intended to produce equal behaviors.  One of the best ways to do that was to convince women that sexually they have the same goals, instincts and behaviors as men.  To really push it, we need to encourage those behaviors in younger people.  If we have a rape culture (and I still don't believe we do), the very people who are screaming about it, are the ones who started it.  And if you sit back and poo poo their crazy ideas (and let me tell you, they have crazy ideas), you are a rape apologist.  

In a hypersexualized culture, there is most likely more rape.  But if you want to change that,  you don't do it by "teaching our young men respect for boundaries."  I'm pretty sure most parents do that.  You teach that sex isn't a game, or a passing fancy, or something to do on the weekend when you are bored.   And in case you are wondering, you don't just teach that to young men.  When you factor in the FBI definition of rape, men are as likely to have been raped as women, and nearly half of those men report their assailant as female.  You teach people to be smart, to be aware of their situations, to never put themselves in a situation to become a victim.  Don't go to a frat party and get so drunk you don't have a clue what you did last night.  Don't leave your drink unattended at a bar.  Don't walk down a dark alley at night by yourself.  (Just me saying that is perpetuating rape culture, by the way.)   And you teach them that sex is sacred, beautiful, and not something you hand out like candy on Halloween.  

The idea of rape culture is born out of a culture that in truth should be labeled the "sex culture".  And until these saints, these future Mother Teresas, are willing to change that, they should shut up about their precious rape culture.  They created this society, and now they aren't too keen to live in it.  Tough crap.

  

The New American Way

Adam Weinstein, a blogger at Gawker, thinks that anyone who is not on board the Climate Change Train should be imprisoned.

Katherine Timpf, a reporter for Camus Reform, was told that a feminist leadership conference was "inclusive" and she was "not welcome here".  

Charles Murray is a white supremacist for holding views on Education that don't fit within the platform of the Texas Democrat Party.

It's anti-free speech to allow people to contribute as much as they want to political campaigns.  

The very people who passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act now want us to forget they ever passed it.

Lois Lerner faces contempt charges for refusing to speak (after already giving testimony, which is what she did when she proclaimed her innocence) on the IRS targeting certain groups.  Mostly conservative groups.

The Anti-Koch Harry Reid funneled thousands upon thousands of dollars, illegally, to his granddaughter.

And there is that California State Senator, champion of gun control, who was, quite possibly, running illegal guns to Chinese Mobsters.

Last, there is that guy...you know the one who brilliantly helped create Mozilla Firefox, who was forced to resign because he gave money to Proposition 8 back in 2008.  Proposition 8 was the ballot initiative for traditional marriage in California.  You know who else favored traditional marriage in 2008?  President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.  

This is the new American Way.  People who are brilliant in their field of business can't have a job because they don't support gay marriage.  If you dare to question the orthodoxy on Climate Change, you should be imprisoned.  The Koch Brothers are evil and trying to buy elections (but please don't pay attention to my illegal funds transfers to my family).  Free speech!!! (Unless that speech comes from people I don't like and supports positions I don't support).  Oh, and citizens should NOT be allowed to own semi-automatic weapons (but, fully automatic weapons and rocket launchers are just fine in the hands of organized crime.)  

Yeah, that's all I have to say.

Adding to the Noise

I should probably not be adding to the noise today, but shutting up has never been one of my better qualities.

I posted a minor status on facebook about a recent Supreme Court case, because there are a lot of uninformed people out there.  The case: Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby.  All you had to do was listen to the protesters outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and you got a very...interesting... take on this case.  You see, they are claiming that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood are standing in the way of women's rights.  Their rights to contraception.  That these two businesses, by refusing to subsidize certain forms of contraception, are actually forcing women back into the 1960's, or something like that.

“The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in a case that pits religious liberty against women’s rights.” 
~Adam Liptake, New York Times, March 24, 2014

So, we'll start with this premise.  Hobby Lobby would like to be exempt from Plan B and IUDs.  Both methods of birth control could cause already fertilized eggs to be aborted.  These methods of contraception comprise only 4 of the 20 available options under the Affordable Care Act.   Hobby Lobby is more than willing to cover the other 16.  Moreover, Hobby Lobby is not saying women cannot take Plan B or use IUDs.  They are simply saying that, as a matter of faith, they should not be forced to subsidize them.  So when discussing "women's rights", I'm pretty sure no one here is denying women the right to purchase these drugs.

Many of the protesters on Tuesday were holding signs said that contraception is a choice between a woman and her doctor.  I have no problem with that.  However, in this case, what they really want is the choice to be between the woman and her doctor, and the company to pay for that choice.  By demanding coverage be provided, at no cost to the employee, you are inviting your company to participate in your choices.  You don't really have a right to scream privacy while actively demanding that someone be "on the hook" for whatever it is you are doing "privately". 

How about those signs that said "stay out of my bedroom."  Gladly.  I have no desire to be in your bedroom and I'm sure the Greens (of Hobby Lobby fame), don't want to be there either.  So how about you stop demanding that they pay for your activities there?  It's simple.  If you truly want people to stay out of your sex life, don't ask them to pay for it.

Back in my 20's, my husband and I lived, literally, paycheck to paycheck.  On pennies, sometimes. (Literally, pennies at the bottom of the change cup.)  Our insurance did not cover birth control.  Somehow I managed to squeeze the money for it.  Maybe we didn't have dinner out one  night when we really wanted to.  We skipped seeing that movie in the theater and watched it when it came out on DVD.  But, since I wanted to control my own fertility, I made the sacrifices necessary to do that. 

 I have a hard time feeling bad for someone typing out statuses on facebook from their $600 iphone, about how they got drunk at a bar the night before.  A status full of typos because they just got their nails done.  And with the status is a picture of that new cut and color.   Today sacrifice means $15 bucks at the local clinic (which is about the cost of getting those nails done and about 1/4 of the cost of a cut and color). And yet, they gathered, like oppressed underdogs, in front of the Supreme Court, and tried to claim someone was violating their rights, their doctor-patient relationship and their privacy. 

Better yet, if this was a church, or a charity, or one of those dreaded 501(c4) organizations, we wouldn't be having this conversation.  They are exempt, based on their religious beliefs.  But if you happen to make a profit, well you're screwed.  You don't get to have morals.  Corporations that make money are run by individuals, who simply because they run a business, have somehow abdicated their Constitutional Rights.  That's what the current Administration, the Liberal News Media, and the left-wing activist base want you to believe.  

But wait, these same people, who say corporations are not individuals and thus don't have a claim to the first amendment (since it applies to individuals) will swear that the second amendment is a collective (or corporate) right, not an individual right.  

Individuals, regardless of their business ownership, do not cease to be afforded the protections of the Constitution.   You don't have to like it, but if you live in this country you do have to deal with it.  

This country has, since the beginning of time, been based on the rights of individuals, the freedom of individuals.  You are perfectly free to go to your local pharmacy and buy Plan B.  You do not have the right to insist that someone else pay for it, even if it goes against everything they believe in.  The Administration, Congress and the Senate would have done well to remember that when they cobbled together this atrocious legislation and rammed it down our throats.  The poor me crowd would do well to remember it, because if they win, this very decision could very well come back to bite them in the ass.

Full Circle Observations

This weekend was full of news stories, the biggest one being the U.S. and several other countries reaching a deal with the Iranian Government over it's nuclear program.  I'm not going to talk about that.  I think the deal speaks for itself.  I've decided to take on another, far less covered story.

Crystal Mangum was convicted of Second Degree Murder.  (If you don't know her name, it's okay.  She faded into oblivion after April 11, 2007. Most of the major media outlets are not going to give her top billing.  It wouldn't really do much for their reputations.)

Let me diverge off course for just a moment.  Not too long ago, my daughter was in a discussion with her TV Media teacher.  The teacher requires the students to have a news story to discuss every day, and this day, one of the students mentioned the miscarriage of justice in the Steubenville Rape case.  In the course of the discussion, my daughter mentions how false rape accusations lead to these miscarriages of justice in cases where rape actually does happen.  Her teacher says there are is no such thing as a false rape accusation.  My daughter mentions a few that have happened in her high school (stunts that were intended to gain attention.  It seems in high school fake rape accusations and fake pregnancy is the way to go these days).  Being that she was only 10 at the time, the case I would have brought up wasn't anywhere near her radar.  We discussed it at home.

Which brings me back to Crystal Mangum and who she is.  Ms. Mangum is the stripper who accused three Duke Lacrosse Players of kidnapping and rape.  The story became a national media frenzy, and as is the case with all national media frenzies, editorial pages opined about how horrible this all was.  Allan Gurganus in the New York Times, had this to say about these boys: “The children of privilege feel vividly alive only while victimizing, even torturing.”  The media, professors at universities all across the country, and even politicians raced to judgment.  These boys of white, rich privileged lives must be guilty.  

Only they weren't. There was very little evidence to prove they had done it, and a whole lot of evidence that made it obvious they didn't.  Evidence that Prosecutor Michael Nifong, who was trying to win re-election as the District Attorney of a racially diverse Durham County, illegally hid from the Defense.  This act of severe prosecutorial misconduct led to him being fired, disbarred and charged.  More than six years after the Attorney General for North Carolina dropped all the charges because, as he said, the accused were innocent, the media, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and 87 Faculty and Board members at Duke University have yet to apologize.  It was truly stunning, the rush to judgment, and then the slow slinking away of all those judges when it turned out they had hitched their stars to something that never happened.

So Crystal Mangum won't be making front page news as a convicted murderer.  To bring her up is to remind people of medial malpractice, an act that to this day is simply brushed under the carpet and never brought up again.  I'm sure those three boys whose lives were ruined don't care, right?

Media Malpractice is alive and well.  It was before this, and it will be for years to come because we, the citizens who read their garbage, refuse to hold them responsible.  In their rush to be the first to cover a story, they almost never get it right.

Outside of the Rocky Mountain News, most media outlets got most of the massacre at Columbine High School wrong.  And their observations are still taken as gospel today.

The same can be said of the shootings in Aurora (remember the accusation that James Holmes was a tea party person?), Sandy Hook (we are still finding out how bad they got that wrong), and the list goes on and on.  It's called Media Malpractice.  They try, convict and sentence without a shred of evidence.  After the Boston Marathon, it was a full day before any news channel even got a hint of the right information.  For 24 hours they were permitted to disseminate information that they had absolutely no clue if it was correct, but, they had to have their 24/7 coverage, so they made things up.

Back to Ms. Mangum. It's probably cold consolation to three people who had their lives turned upside down by a pathological liar, who is now a convicted murderer.   It's a cold consolation to those of us who questioned from the beginning whether the Duke Lacrosse "Rape" Case deserved the attention it was getting.  It's no consolation to the true rape victims who have that much harder of a time, because this case caused people to doubt those accusations.  And in the media silence we hear ... crickets.

Demonizing the Guy Who Might Run For President....

In Three Years.

 “If I didn’t care so much about our country, I would hope he would get the Republican nomination for president, because that would mean the end of the Republican Party." (Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, Rachel Maddow Show, October 31,2013)

The next Presidential election is 3 years away.  The Primaries for that election are 2 years away.  And yet, I've seen a bunch of headlines in the last few weeks about Ted Cruz, and his ability to be nominated and to be elected President of the United States.  It's possible I'm suffering from Post Presidential Campaign Syndrome.  I'm tired of the campaigns and the politics of personal destruction that come with them.  Maybe that's why I'm trying to figure out why the Democrats are on a rampage against Ted Cruz running for President...in two years.  It seems that even though we just elected a President a year ago, we are still in campaign mode, and people like Harry Reid want you to know that if you vote for Ted Cruz (in three years), you will destroy the Republican Party.

First of all, Senator Reid, as I'm not a progressive, or a liberal, or a Democrat, the odds are I'm not really concerned with who you think I should vote for, in an election I haven't even started thinking about.  Nor am I concerned with what Rachel Maddow thinks about anything.  I watch the Kelly Files.  Sorry.

Second, I have to wonder why all these Democrats, and all these Pundits on both sides of the aisle are going after Ted Cruz on the basis of an election no one (but Pundits with nothing better to do) is thinking about.  What is it about this man that is driving so many people to say some very nasty things about Ted Cruz and his supporters?  

Look again at Harry Reid's quote.  He is essentially saying that if you care about the USA, you wouldn't possibly cast your vote for Ted Cruz.  

We heard from a lot of people, even conservative pundits, that Barack Obama was the smartest man who ever ran for President.  If his accomplishments prior to becoming President were the reason people said that, maybe we should look at Ted Cruz.

• Graduated from South Baptist High School in 1988, Valedictorian
• Graduated cum laude from Princeton University, BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
• Won Top Speaker at the US National Debating Championships and the North American Debating Championship in 1992.
• Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, Juris Doctor.
• Editor of the Harvard Law Review
• Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy
• Founding Editor of the Latino Harvard Law Review
• Law clerk to J. Michael Luttig, US Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
• Law clerk to William Rehnquist, Chief Justice, US Supreme Court
• Associate Deputy Attorney General, United States, `1999-2003
• Solicitor General, State of Texas, 2003-2008

That's some list of accomplishments.  Alan Dershowitz called him "Off the charts brilliant", when he was at Harvard Law School

Ted Cruz is a pretty smart man.  He's a minority.  The people in Texas love him.  (Okay, I realize maybe that isn't a bonus.  After all, to many people, Texas is a foreign country.  God bless Texas.)

So why, 3 years out from a Presidential Election, are people like Harry Reid going on news shows, telling people how bad Ted Cruz is?

Maybe, just maybe, because they think he can win.