And you'll be there helping to circle the wagons?

It is not reported on

I used to travel overseas often and the difference in the covers of even standard magazines like Time and Newsweek in London or Caracas--not to mention all of the other publications.

At least back then (this was around 12-15 years ago) journalism was still being practiced outside of this country.

What almost no one realizes is that the what America does simply isn't reported here.

And when it is reported it is softened with terms like "collateral damage". You could make a list of the terms we've come up with for our routine violence. Since we can't see it, smell it, hear it--well those terms suck the impact from what America does.

The funny thing is that many of us still think we're the good guys--even while we're doing things that would have impressed the SS.

If we had journalists that had any interest in doing their jobs who worked for news providers that had any interest in reporting even a fraction of the actual truth we might begin to question what our leaders are doing in our name.

But for now, we are the country that dispenses summary justice from the sky and imprisons people without trial or charges in Guantanamo and black sites we don't even know about.

We're a long way from being the good guys now.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that we're producing creatures like Ted Cruz as presidential candidates when our current President is addicted to drone warfare.

A very moral, thinking person

I feel a kinship with her.

I left the Catholic church at the age of 13 after a four year intellectual journey that started when I discovered the Inquisition.

I found a reference to it in a juvenile historical novel and went over to the adult section in the library and found a book about the history of the Inquisition. When I went to the desk to check it out the librarian refused to let me check it out.

I was blessed with a mother who was a study in contradictions. She was a harsh prude about anything having to do with sex. But I was not reading about or wanting to read about sex. I was reading history. She called the librarian and told her to let me check out anything I wanted.

As I entered my teens with my faith profoundly shaken we moved to Colombia. I was confronted by deep, epidemic poverty the likes of which I'd never seen in my life. The source of any poverty is extremely complex, but overpopulation in the campesino class was a key factor. There was a nascent program to promote family planning through educations and distribution of free condoms and in Bogota, oral contraceptives.

This was the late 60's and liberalism was making rapid gains everywhere, but especially in Latin America.

To stifle this movement (it was not only in Colombia, but throughout all of Latin America) Pope Paul VI decided to tour Latin America. He actively preached against the family planning movement and told these poor ignorant people that if they tried to take control of their own reproductive lives that they would go to hell.

The movement collapsed overnight. Suddenly, those going into the vast shanty towns ringing every major city in South America could (literally) not give away condoms or birth control pills.

I left the church in disgust and have not ever gone back.

But I didn't have the courage of this young lady. She has organized to spread what she has discovered.

How I admire her.

Right on!

I've had the sense that nothing is as it seems for months now. The narrative Hillary was to be the heir apparent was set up years ago. First we had a black President. And then we would have our first woman President. It was to be this seamless transition as we marched into a progressive paradise.

But, but....

Some of us have been rudely paying attention to Ms. Clinton's actual policy positions and when offered the alternative of a real progressive found that option much more appealing.

I eagerly await the primaries. I think the nation is going to be shocked at the divergence from the pre-ordained narrative the MSM has been pushing.

So far no sightings in Texas

I live in the Dallas area and I don't know anyone that is really for the idea of people walking around with a gun openly strapped to their hip.

The company I work for has decided to be gutless and not have an explicit policy on open carry in their stores. I had a short, sharp exchange with a senior manager and expressed my displeasure and unwillingness to work with anyone that comes in openly armed.

But I doubt we'll see it that often.

The people that want to do this are a tiny tiny minority that have somehow garnered an extraordinary amount of influence and power because they vote in the primaries.

Most people, even if they have a concealed carry permit, have no desire to walk around openly armed.

And that is the problem that I expressed to that senior manager. The chances are that someone that is openly carrying is probably not quite right in the head. Otherwise, they wouldn't have any desire to openly carry.

That is the core problem. Only the crazies are paranoid and insecure enough to want to be armed all the time. The crazies are--and always have been--the problem...

That's why we let it go

My wife's pregnancy was high risk and my youngest almost didn't make it. But the care was expert (before the birth and in the NICU) and I have a wonderful, beautiful, brilliant daughter.

I did not agree with their position and if not for the outcome might have gone to the ACLU myself.

Instead, I got a vasectomy a few years later.

It is a grotesque violation of medical ethics in my view.

It was over reproductive rights and contraception specifically I left the Church at 13.

Even though Pope Francis is a really great guy and the world loves him he has not changed Catholicism's anti-feminine, anti-sex dogma. A dogma not rooted in the teachings of Christ but in the twisted prudery of old bitter men.

St. John's in St. Louis (now Mercy Hospital)

Catholic hospital in St. Louis 23 years ago refused to do a tubal ligation for my wife.

At the time we just let it roll.