Finally, Rape Survivors In The Military No Longer Have To Disclose That They Sought Counseling

Before Friday, sexual assault victims in high-level military or intelligence positions were required to disclose if they sought counseling when applying for a higher intelligence clearance. But in a widely celebrated move on Friday, the Office of Director of National Intelligence announced that these individuals will now be allowed to keep their counseling history private.

The “infamous Question 21“, as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates called it, asks if the applicant has received mental health treatment in the last seven years, in order to determine any psychological concerns. While seeking mental health treatment does not officially disqualify someone from receiving security clearance, it can delay it and expose the applicant to invasive questioning. By multiple reports, sexual assault victims often forego counseling for fear it will affect their ability to rise through the ranks. One woman profiled by NPR chose to quit rather than disclose her rape:

Jennifer Norris was a devoted member of the Maine National Guard.

“I was ecstatic. I absolutely loved serving in the military,” she says.

Norris still wanted a career in the Guard even after she was sexually assaulted by other members of the military. After she was raped, she says she got psychological counseling. But then it came time to renew the security clearance she needed for her job as a satellite communications technician. One question on the form — Question 21 — asked whether she’d sought help from a mental health professional over the past seven years.

“I just could not bear sharing that information with all those people when my husband didn’t even know,” she says.

Norris says the prospect of divulging that information was too much. Instead, she decided to leave the National Guard.

Seeking counseling for sexual assault will now join the list of exemptions currently in place for family, grief and marital counseling, and for post-combat stress. Those exemptions were only added in 2008, as part of the Defense Department’s campaign to encourage soldiers to seek counseling and dispel entrenched hostility to mental health care.

Even though roughly one-third of all female troops have experienced sexual assault in the military, victims continue to bear significant stigma and often stay silent about the assault. One study found that women who were sexually assaulted while serving are nine times more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Ben Carson Finally Apologizes For Comparing Same-Sex Marriage To Pedophilia

A week and a half after Dr. Ben Carson outraged the LGBT community by linking same-sex marriage to pedophilia and bestiality in a nationally televised interview on Fox News, the Johns Hopkins brain surgeon is finally apologizing for his hateful remarks.

Carson had already tried to walk back his comments and extinguish a few fires late last week during an appearance on MSNBC, but he didn’t issue much in the way of an apology. This time though, in an email sent to the Johns Hopkins community, he sounded sincere:

In a Friday email to the Hopkins community – which a source shared with POLITICO – Carson apologized for having caused “any embarrassment” to the institutions he has been affiliated with.

“As you know, I have been in the national news quite a bit recently and my 36 year association with Johns Hopkins has unfortunately dragged our institution into the spotlight as well. I am sorry for any embarrassment this has caused,” wrote Carson, who is the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. “But what really saddens me is that my poorly chosen words caused pain for some members of our community and for that I offer a most sincere and heartfelt apology. Hurting others is diametrically opposed to who I am and what I believe.”

A majority of students in the 2013 graduating class at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine signed a petition calling on the administration to replace Carson as this year’s commencement speaker, but a report yesterday suggested that university officials were still planning invite him. Faculty and staff at JHU also condemned Carson’s remarks in the days following his appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program.

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Bill O’Reilly Finally Admits ‘Homosexuality Has Nothing To Do With The Crime Of Pedophilia’

Bill O’Reilly has been campaigning against Colorado House Speaker Mark Ferrandino (D) because he won’t allow a vote on a bill to “Jessica’s Law.” Jessica’s Law imposes excessive penalties on individuals who commit sexual abuse against children, and O’Reilly has repeatedly inferred a connection between the fact Ferrandino is openly gay and not “protecting the kids.” Earlier this week, he responded to criticism over this comparison by doubling down on it. On Tuesday’s broadcast, he finally admitted the connection doesn’t exist, but took no accountability for reinforcing it:

O’REILLY: I have to report the truth here. First truism, homosexuality has nothing to do with the crime of pedophilia. Second, everyone we report on is defined and that guy is proud of his circumstance and promotes it, so we reported it.

Watch it (via Equality Matters):

A “truism” is something so obviously true that it isn’t worth mentioning, and the supposed link between homosexuality and pedophilia hardly fits that description. It’s true that there’s no connection, but it has been made or inferred for decades. More importantly, O’Reilly brazenly made it himself without any subtlety to hide behind just seven months ago. He can’t just shrug it off like everybody knows better when he has a history of miseducating his viewers on the issue.

His admission is also compromised by his description of Ferrandino as having a “circumstance” that he “promotes.” Being gay is not a condition, nor can homosexuality be reinforced in anyone. Under the premise of a campaign to “protect the children,” O’Reilly is only continuing to reinforce stigma against gay people with this kind of rhetoric. If he actually supports civil unions as he claims, he has no grounds for demonizing others for doing the same.

Tonight, Denver Post Opinion Editor Curtis Hubbard, who criticized O’Reilly for his smear campaign against Ferrandino, will appear on his show to confront him in person. Maybe fourth time’s the charm for O’Reilly figuring out how to respect the inherent dignity of an elected official.

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Sen. Cruz: 'I'm glad' Obama is finally reaching out to Republicans

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is "glad" President Obama has been meeting with Republican lawmakers recently.

Cruz's comments during a radio interview on Monday follow Obama dining with a dozen of Cruz's Republican Senate colleagues on Wednesday. The president is scheduled to meet with both Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House and the Senate during the week.

"I think we should always be willing to listen. I think we should always treat each other with civility and respect," Cruz, a Tea Party favorite, said Monday during an interview on The Bill Bennett Show. "I'm glad that he is reaching out. That is better than what I have seen the first couple of months here where it seemed that he had no interest whatsoever in talking with the other side."

During the dinner on Wednesday Obama told the group of Republican senators that he wanted to finish a grand bargain plan for reducing the deficit by the end of July. Participants leaving the meeting seemed optimistic about the possibility of completing a grand bargain.

Cruz added though that he would like to see more from Obama than just sitting down and listening to Republicans.

"But I'm a big believer that actions speak louder than words —that if he's really interested," Cruz said.  "The day I was elected to office I said I look forward and am eager to work with President Obama if he's willing to get serious about solving the grave economic and fiscal challenges."

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The Momentum Finally Shifts, Slightly, To Romney

I’ve previously looked in detail at the breakdown of GOP primary votes here, here and here; for purposes of this series, I’ve broken out the votes in three groups – the five conservative candidates (Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann and Cain), the two moderate candidates (Romney and Hunstman) and the libertarian (Paul) – for reasons explained in the first post. In my second post, I detailed the signs to look for to see whether and when Romney would start putting the race away with the voters rather than simply plodding through the accumulation of delegates.

After the March 24 vote in Louisiana and Tuesday’s votes in Wisconsin, Maryland and DC, we can see the signs of that momentum shift, but only slightly, with stubborn resistance to Romney still continuing. Not-unrelatedly, we can see the collapse of Newt Gingrich’s campaign to levels even lower than he was getting in February, the last time he went a month without being on the ballot in any Southern state (recall that Newt was not on the Missouri ballot). Let’s start with the month-by-month running tally:

CandidateJANUARY%FEBRUARY%MARCH%APRIL%Romney1,071,678 40.5%741,495 40.6%2,181,105 37.6%466,928 45.4%Santorum378,995 14.3%692,296 37.9%1,748,498 30.1%358,668 34.9%Gingrich817,770 30.9%160,360 8.8%1,219,154 21.0%72,509 7.0%Paul278,729 10.5%215,023 11.8%578,435 10.0%111,129 10.8%Huntsman50,049 1.9%2,817 0.2%15,387 0.3%6,851 0.7%Perry23,592 0.9%6,293 0.3%23,581 0.4%1,041 0.1%Bachmann10,856 0.4%3,480 0.2%8,688 0.1%6,054 0.6%Cain10,046 0.4%3,555 0.2%39 0.0%– 0.0%Rest4,742 0.2%1,528 0.1%29,142 0.5%5,416 0.5%Conservatives1,241,259 46.9%865,984 47.4%2,999,960 51.7%438,272 42.6%Moderates1,121,727 42.4%744,312 40.7%2,196,492 37.8%473,779 46.1%Libertarians278,729 10.5%215,023 11.8%578,435 10.0%111,129 10.8%TOTAL2,646,457 1,826,847 5,804,029 1,028,596

This looks like a significant shift to Romney after the deterioration of his numbers in March, but as with his rough showing in March, you have to bear in mind the calendar: all three primaries on Tuesday were in blue territory (deep blue in the case of Maryland and DC, plus Santorum wasn’t on the ballot in DC, whereas Wisconsin has been much more favorable lately to Republicans, with Tea Party-backed Republicans Ron Johnson and Scott Walker winning statewide in 2010). The real dynamic remains mostly the same, with Romney’s supporters and opponents just not evenly distributed geographically. Let’s update the red/blue/purple numbers, previously broken out here, again excluding Virginia because none of the conservatives were on the ballot:

Romney1,273,119 30.0%1,399,566 41.8%1,630,401 46.7%Santorum1,270,691 30.0%752,636 22.5%1,155,130 33.1%Gingrich1,260,389 29.7%764,660 22.9%244,744 7.0%Paul357,218 8.4%325,541 9.7%392,965 11.3%Huntsman7,706 0.2%55,362 1.7%12,036 0.3%Perry15,892 0.4%28,595 0.9%10,020 0.3%Bachmann9,959 0.2%10,390 0.3%8,729 0.3%Cain8,677 0.2%3,722 0.1%1,241 0.0%Rest34,938 0.8%4,600 0.1%33,427 1.0%Conservatives2,565,608 60.5%1,560,003 46.6%1,419,864 40.7%Moderates1,280,825 30.2%1,454,928 43.5%1,642,437 47.1%Libertarians357,218 8.4%325,541 9.7%392,965 11.3%TOTAL4,238,589 3,345,072 3,488,693

As you can see, the vote totals for April are actually slightly more favorable to the conservatives in general, and less favorable to Romney, than the overall blue-state numbers. That’s not to say that Romney underperformed, per se; Santorum had been leading him in Wisconsin until the campaign and its related advertising blitz started there in earnest after Louisiana, and while Romney had won narrow primary victories in Michigan and Ohio, Santorum had previously won caucuses in Minnesota and Iowa. So, Wisconsin was far from a natural gimme for Romney, and his win there – while hardly overwhelming, with he and Huntsman still combining for less than 45% of the vote – can’t be ascribed solely to being on blue turf. Sean Trende went in more demographic detail the day before the vote to explain why Wisconsin could be a sign of momentum shift. On the other hand, Romney was unable to muster a majority in deep-blue Maryland, where John McCain won almost 55% of the vote against Mike Huckabee on February 12, 2008; McCain also won almost 55% a week later in Wisconsin. Thus, the break to Romney is happening at the margins, and is not yet the stampede that McCain was enjoying by mid-February in 2008, when a smaller bloc of social conservative voters were holding out for Mike Huckabee (McCain would go on to win majorities in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island on March 4 before Huckabee dropped out). The sense that Romney is winning over the objections of a majority of the party’s voters will not be dispelled any time soon; the best he can hope for is a determined resignation to put the primary slog out of its misery and move on to the general election.

The collapse of the Newt campaign may also be overstated somewhat here (he’s been getting clobbered in the blue states all year), but there really seems to be no life left in Newt’s cash-strapped operation besides protest votes (full disclosure: I cast a vote yesterday for Newt by absentee for New York’s April 24 primary, purely as a protest; I might have voted for Perry if he’d been on the ballot). Amusing, neither-here-nor-there detail: with Perry and Cain not on the ballot, Michele Bachmann actually drew more votes in Wisconsin than she has in any other state, 8 more than she got in Iowa.

Finally, let’s update the state-by-state tally – Virginia and DC are marked with asterisks because of the absence of major candidates from the ballot, Guam and American Samoa are excluded because I couldn’t find popular vote totals:

STATE (Date)CategoryTypeConservativesModeratesLibertariansGA 3/6REDPrimary67.1%26.1%6.6%KS 3/10REDCaucus65.9%21.1%12.6%LA 3/24REDPrimary65.7%26.8%6.1%MS 3/13REDPrimary65.0%30.5%4.4%AL 3/13REDPrimary64.4%29.2%5.0%OK 3/6REDPrimary62.1%28.3%9.6%TN 3/6REDPrimary61.8%28.3%9.0%SC 1/21REDPrimary58.9%28.0%13.0%MO 2/7REDPrimary*57.7%25.8%12.2%MN 2/7BLUECaucus55.7%16.9%27.2%IA 1/3PURPLECaucus53.2%25.1%21.4%CO 2/7PURPLECaucus53.2%34.9%11.8%OH 3/6PURPLEPrimary52.3%38.5%9.2%ND 3/6REDCaucus48.2%23.7%28.1%FL 1/31PURPLEPrimary46.1%46.8%7.0%MI 2/28BLUEPrimary44.9%41.3%11.6%IL 3/20BLUEPrimary43.6%46.7%9.3%WI 4/3BLUEPrimary43.5%44.8%11.2%AK 3/6REDCaucus43.4%32.5%24.1%AZ 2/28REDPrimary43.2%47.3%8.4%MD 4/3BLUEPrimary40.2%49.8%9.5%WY 2/29REDCaucus39.9%39.2%20.9%HI 3/13BLUECaucus36.3%45.4%18.3%WA 3/3BLUECaucus34.1%37.6%24.8%VT 3/6BLUEPrimary32.8%41.7%25.5%NV 2/4PURPLECaucus31.1%50.1%18.8%ME 2/11BLUECaucus24.7%38.0%36.1%ID 3/6REDCaucus20.3%61.6%18.1%NH 1/10PURPLEPrimary19.8%56.1%22.9%MA 3/6BLUEPrimary17.3%73.1%9.6%DC 4/3BLUEPrimary*10.7%77.2%12.0%PR 3/18TerrPrimary10.7%88.0%1.3%USVI 3/10TerrCaucus10.7%26.3%29.2%NMI 3/10TerrCaucus9.6%87.3%3.2%VA 3/6PURPLEPrimary*0.0%59.5%40.5%

It’s nearly three weeks until the next set of primaries on April 24, all in the deep-blue Northeast (New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware) except for blue Northeast/Midwest hybrid Pennsylvania, where Santorum – as the hometown favorite son – looks to make his last stand. Santorum trails badly in the polls in all of them besides Pennsylvania, where the polls are moving against him. The others should be be easy wins for Romney even without a momentum shift, but if Santorum loses Pennsylvania, it should convince Santorum – and Gingrich, who should have already – to throw in the towel and admit that, whether the voters like it or not, Mitt Romney is the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.

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