‘Transgendered Leftist Activist’ — Ted Cruz Speaks

Ted Cruz says there's no evidence the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooter, who killed three people including a police officer, was in any way influenced by the right-wing anti-choice movement's aggressive public statements against Planned Parenthood, but instead is a deranged murderer plain and simple, despite his reported remarks about "baby parts" after his arrest.  Cruz says the murder could just as well have been committed by a "transgendered leftist activist."

There are two problems with Cruz's assertion. The first is that this sort of murderous outrage has been targeted at Planned Parenthood for decades, with at least one murderer caught, convicted and executed for killing a doctor at an abortion clinic in Pensacola, FL in 2003. (I saw that man interviewed on Nightline by Ted Koppel; he was one scary mofo.) And this latest murder, of Officer Garrett Swasey, allegedly by Robert Lewis Dear of North Carolina, was one of no fewer than seven murders of employees of Planned Parenthood or other clinics engaging in a wholly legal medical procedure at a lawfully operated clinic.

The second problem is that Ted Cruz himself, who may not actually be a "transgendered leftist activist" (and I most certainly don't mean to imply that he is; e.g., he's surely not a leftist), is... well, you and I know what he is, though I'm sure we don't know the half of it:

Regular readers (if I still have any) know I oppose the death penalty under all circumstances, but it is difficult for me to find any sympathy for Robert Dear if he committed a crime that deprived us of Officer Garrett Swasey, doing his sworn duty, quite possibly despite his personal opinions on Planned Parenthood... we'll never know. (You have no idea how difficult it can be for a clinic at which abortions are performed to hire an off-duty officer to protect it; back in 1996, Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas forbade his deputies to take off-duty work guarding Planned Parenthood clinics or other "controversial" locations.)

As President Obama put it, simply and directly: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

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(My usual disclaimer: more than two decades ago at the beginning of my career as an IT contractor, I did a series of contracts creating apps for the local Planned Parenthood. I am proud of that work, and what I saw of the day-to-day functioning of the clinic convinced me that the women of Texas, young, old or indigent, are in capable hands indeed for their reproductive health care. Shut down Planned Parenthood and you will, with certainty, kill an unknown number of women.)