The GOP Wants to REDEFINE RAPE

hat tip-lamh34

from Washington Monthly:

THE ODIOUS GOP PLAN TO REDEFINE RAPE.... Last week, after a rather pointless vote to repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans announced their second major initiative: the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act."

It was additional evidence that the new House GOP majority isn't exactly focused on the economy and job creation, and it seemed like another gesture to the party's far-right base. After all, existing law already restricts public funds for abortions.

Today, Nick Baumann takes a closer look at the proposal, and highlights an odious provision that proponents would use to redefine rape.

For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. (Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.)

Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn't be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.

I'm going to say this again:

THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE.

Plain and Simple.

Read more »

Don't Forget About The Silent Truth

Don't forget about Lavena Johnson and the wider epidemic of assaults and attacks in the military, particularly against women. The Silent Truth, is supposed to premiere sometime this year. You won't see this on Faux News or CNN.

Related Links

A Look at The Experiences of Women in the Military

Rape & Cover-up in Iraq

Lavena Johnson Story Now a Documentary

Documentary, The Silent Truth, coming in 2010.

Learn more here.

Warning: graphic images.

One Senator tears into those defending rapists; the other Senator tears into those helping domestic violence victims

hat tip:DailyKos

So. In one case, you have a U.S. Senator tearing apart a guy for trying to defend the gang rape, battery and imprisonment of a young woman.




In the other case, you have a U.S. Senator tearing apart a woman for trying to help domestic violence victims get medical attention.

An example of why I Generally Can't Stand Hollywood

This is why Hollywood could fall into the Pacific Ocean and I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep. We are living in a very strange World. When folks are openly coming to the defense of rapists....and wanting them to go free, it really makes me question what kind of society this is.... I mean, what's the limit? Are there any limits for these folks? And it is really an indictment of Hollywood and that whole culture. In a way, this only reinforces perceptions that outsiders have about Hollywood.

If i'm someone in leadership at the MPAA or screenwriters guild or any of the other organizations and institutions in that industry.... I would cringe at this kind of behavior by those who are representing me. I would want to run as far away from Polanski and his supporters as possible. By extension (intentional or not) they are defending and condoning rape (child rape at that). Mind-blowing stuff.

Luckily there are a few celebrities with a different take who aren't afraid to speak up. Chris Rock is as baffled as the rest of us.

Child Rape Now Legal In State of Texas?

Texas Supreme Court Decides that Children Must Be Returned to FLDS

The Texas Supreme Court decided last week that children rescued from a Texas Ranch (where child rape was common) must now be returned, due to the fact that Texas Child welfare authorities did not have enough evidence to remove the children. Despite the fact that the FLDS rape victims were completely cut off from the outside World and were mentally conditioned to avoid non-sect members and to not seek help. In other words, this may have been one of the few opportunities to conduct a rescue. There won't be many other chances to do so. The children are being sent back into a situation where they will once again be cut off from the outside world, and that includes being cut-off from help. With the few reports trickling out of the FLDS sect over the past year or so we are probably seeing just the tip of a very big iceberg. Due to the secrecy of the group, there was likely a lot more abuse taking place inside the compound that authorities have not yet learned about or that they cannot confirm. But the Texas "High" Court (High indeed) saw fit to send the children back to the rape camp.Wonderful! This is another indication for me that America has lost its collective mind.

So child rape is now legal in the State of Texas. I love the State of Texas... and spent a few years growing up there. Beautiful State. But some of the people there are just downright crazy. It is a State that definitely has its own culture and tradition - A World unto itself. I understand that it is a very Conservative & "Live & Let Live" Libertarian State. In fact, that "Live & Let Live" culture was probably one of the reasons why the State was chosen as a site for FLDS activities, and ultimately the reason why the cult was left alone for so long, allowing for the open abuse of so many children. But this was no time for Libertarianism on the Texas Supreme Court.

Imagine a scene at a rape trial where the victim is ordered to go home with the rapist and to do what they say…. This is essentially the helpless situation that the children are placed in. Such a scene would be unthinkable in a rape case. But somehow it is acceptable in the FLDS cases. The Texas Courts have become enablers for the FLDS abuse. It reminds me of how the government was a silent enabler for the Catholic Priest abuse, typically choosing not to arrest child molesters and seek charges for their crimes. The Courts would often defer to the Catholic Church, allowing the Church to Police itself. That didn't work out so well.

Now, I understand that this whole thing was botched... The child welfare authorities screwed up, although they were in a horrible position. But the Prosecution royally screwed up in this case. The Prosecutors should have been guiding the process from the start so that this outcome could have been avoided. One huge mistake is that they apparently didn't submit all of the necessary evidence to the court- evidence that was actually available to them.

This is where the Courts must use a little common sense, particularly in a case where the victims are children who cannot defend themselves. I'm all for adhering to the Constitution, rules of evidence, and probable cause requirements. But just because the State didn't have all of its T's crossed shouldn't lead to a public safety risk. If photos of grown men kissing young children is not enough evidence for these Texas Judges, then I don't know what kind of evidence would be enough for them. Not to mention the underage children who were popping out babies even while in custody. Disturbing!

Message to Pedophiles from the Texas Supreme Court- You can come to the State of Texas and operate freely, without any scrutiny from the State Courts. All you have to do is set up your own religious community and cut your victims off from the outside World.

More Rape and Cover-Up in Iraq

Another woman has been raped in Iraq, and the U.S. has been covering up the brutal crime, which took place 2 years ago in the Green Zone. This seems to be part of a pattern of women in Iraq being intimidated, abused, raped, and even murdered, followed by government efforts to cover-up what happened.

We are still trying to find answers in the case of Lavena Lynn Johnson, a 19 year old soldier killed murdered in Iraq in July 2005. All indications point to foul play in her case. The national media has helped their friends in the Bush Administration with squashing the Johnson case simply by not covering the story. At least this victim and others, like Ciara Durkin, have received national media attention. Johnson, a Black woman, was not deemed by the national media as being important enough to cover. That being said, I hope that these other cases raise awareness about similar cases across the board.

The victim in the Green zone case was an employee of KBR, a company that was at one time a part of Halliburton - where Cheney was once CEO. She was apparently gangraped by her KBR co-workers. Why have there been no arrests of KBR managers and supervisors who took part in covering this up and intimidating the victim? Why was evidence allowed to disappear? Why were suspects allowed to walk away? This is why the Justice Department needs to be a truly independent agency, rather than another extension of the White House.

From ABC:

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."

Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.

After being gangraped, Jones was held captive... in The Green Zone, which is supposed to be this great bastion of freedom, Democracy and the rule of law in Iraq.

Army doctors eventually conducted an examination of Jones, but afterwards, they handed the evidence to KBR... that's right... they gave the evidence to the suspect. I have never heard of any crime, especially rape, that called for passing sensitive evidence to the suspect. Of course the evidence disappeared shortly thereafter. Why in the Hell is a government authority (The Army Medical Corps) passing evidence- in this case a rape kit- to a private entity in the first place?

I have never seen a government this corrupt. What we are witnessing easily tops the Nixon bunch. You have to look beyond the borders of the United States to find a situation where a government was as corrupt as Bush & Co.

See Full Story from ABC

More from the Carpet Bagger Report.

Stories Of Rape, Indifference, and Justice Denied

Can you imagine living in a place where law & order has broken down? Can you imagine a place where you call 911, but it takes hours, days…and sometimes months for someone to respond to your cry for help? What about a place where women are routinely raped and receive little help or support; where rape cases often go uninvestigated?

It is common knowledge in this community that offenders are seldom pursued, making women and girls in this society even more vulnerable to rapists. Offenders are safe from justice due to government indifference and ineptitude.

This sounds like life for women in a war zone or in a Third World Country. But the place that I have described is not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan, not in South Asia, not in Eastern Europe, or in any other part of the World where women are not as valued as men. The place that I described is a hidden community within the borders of these United States. A Third World Country existing right here in the USA.

The U.S. prides itself on its human rights record & constantly scolds other nations on their human rights conditions. Yet, the U.S. is hiding the poor human rights conditions within its own borders. This is yet another example of why the U.S. is losing what little moral authority that it may have had around the world.

Human Rights Crisis Persists Within The Worlds Beacon For Justice

NPR reports on the hidden crisis of rape on the nations Indian Reservations. A state of lawlessness has been allowed to fester due to a lack of support and funding from the Federal government, under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.

This is an extension of the U.S.’s rape, abuse, and neglect of Native Americans that took place during the colonial period & during the nations 19th Century westward migration. These abuses continue by way of the U.S. governments indifference about the conditions within Native American lands. We are at least able to see the neglect of poor White communities, poor Black communities, poor Latino Communities, the mistreatment of migrant workers, etc. But we rarely see or hear much about what is happening in the hidden Native American Reservations within this country.

These are the first Americans…and they deserve better. Yet it is as if much of the rest of the Country doesn’t want to recognize their existence… it is almost as if they are invisible. After taking (stealing) their land, the U.S. government has done little to fulfill its promises to provide the very basic support that these communities need.

Furthermore, what is happening to the women in the Native American community is a far cry from what happens in White America. When a white woman or a child comes up missing, the World stops spinning and all available resources are put into finding them. When one is raped, police often make finding the perpetrator a top priority (as they should). But the U.S. often fails to apply this same standard to all women and children in the Country. We know that there is a difference in T.V. coverage between missing White Women and missing African American women…the same holds true for some other minorities as well.

If the story you are about to hear involved White women, there would be a national outcry, and more resources would be directed towards the problem. In fact, the problem would not have even been allowed to get as bad as it has for Native American women…if those women were White. I cannot imagine that the American people would stand for communities where predators had safe haven to rape women and children…...not if those women and children were White. But since the victims are Native American, it is somehow acceptable.

Listen to a 2 part report from NPR’s Laura Sullivan, about the crisis of rape and lawlessness on Native American Reservations. Thanks to NPR for shining some light on this situation. We would most likely not have heard of such a story from the mainstream media.

It was NPR’s excellent coverage that caused one of the cases in the report to be reopened.

Listen Below

Part I

Part II