Sam in Kyle

Over the years each First Lady has had a cause. We have Lady Bird to thank for much of the beauty we see along our roadways. Betty Ford championed rights for women and Rosalyn Carter highlighted those with mental disabilities. Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” was as big a flop as her husband’s presidency but it was still an effort. Barbara Bush and Laura Bush both championed literacy, sadly with lackluster results in their immediate family. For Hilary Clinton, her cause was health care and Michelle Obama’s is childhood obesity.

So if by some hideous fate Ann Romney ends up as First Lady what will her cause be? She’s already announced that she will be working to prevent teen drug use. Yet, judging by this article, her efforts may well be directed toward torturing young drug users into submission. Romney has a long history of being involved in “rehab” schools for teens—not just any institutions, but “tough love” ones with disturbing reputations for abuse.

Bain Capital acquired CRC Health in 2006. Although Romney had left the company by then, he still receives money from the profits. Three Bain partners sit on the board; two have donated $500,000 to his super PAC. Among the allegations against the clinics are that, “children have died of neglect under their care as the pressure that Bain exerts on the company to make a profit filters down to their patients.”

Robert Litchfield, a major Romney fundraiser and fellow Mormon, is the founder and board member of the World Wide Association for Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS). Among the allegations brought against the school by former patients are that, “Staff routinely locked teens in dog cages, sexually and physically abused them, starved them, and emotionally brutalized them.”

Another major Romney supporter is Melvin Sembler, a “Florida strip-mall magnate who was a national fundraising chair for Romney in 2008 and is again a Florida State Co-Chair for Romney’s finance committee.” Sembler’s drug rehab clinics, Straight Inc., had a long reputation for abuse including one young girl who, “testified to being beaten, raped, locked in a janitor’s closet in pants soiled by urine, feces, and menstrual blood…”

“You can trust Mitt; he loves America,” said Ann this week at the world’s largest Klan rally. This must be what is called ‘tough love’ really, really ‘tough love’. And even though Mitt has a well-deserved reputation as a flip-flopper, I have no doubt that he and Paul Ryan will treat our nation exactly the way his friends treat teen drug users.