Disgraceful

Alternet: Raped in the Military? You May Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit
This outrage gives "supporting the troops" a whole new meaning.

TRICARE, the United States Department of Defense Military Health System that covers active duty members, will only pay for rape kits if the victim is seen in a military or a VA facility.

But the Pentagon acknowledges that 80 percent of military rapes are never reported. And that 80 percent who go off-base to protect their anonymity (and/or their careers) are on their own. If a soldier is on leave, or is five-hours from the nearest VA, or if a soldier is simply delivered to the nearest hospital by the local ambulance driver, their rape kits are not covered under TRICARE. Neither are other forensic exams that might be used in domestic violence situations.

Front-line treatment shouldn't be conditional on where a rape occurs or where the nearest treatment is available. This is not only a parity issue, but a further obstacle to treatment and justice.

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, "women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.

Rape Victims Deserve Choice

This powerful ad ran on CNN after the debate, according to Americablog:

Transcript:

[Young woman narrator] I was raped and then I got pregnant. Sarah Palin believes that the government should be able to force me to carry the pregnancy to term. Sarah Palin believes that the government should make that choice, not me. Governor Palin, I didn't have a choice about being raped, but I should have a choice about this.

The Wasilla Project: #1

Video with residents of Wasilla, Alaska revealing Sarah Palin's history of charging rape victims for rape kits.

Dishonor

This YouTube video is 10 times better than any ad the Democrats have paid their rich consultants to come up with:



Tag line: "John McCain said he refuses to define honor. Maybe that's because honor no longer defines John McCain."

hat tip to Americablog.

Dead Soul Mates

When he introduced her as his running mate last week, John McCain declared that he and Sarah Palin are soul mates. Sure they are. Dead soul mates. Both McCain and Palin were in favor of forcing rape victims to pay for the rape kits used by police in the investigation of their victimization.

These Republican hypocrites have been running around pretending to be feminists, but let's be real. They are arch conservatives who have been against every development in women's rights in their lifetimes. McCain voted against treating rape victims like the victims of every crime. He singled out rape victims for punitive treatment. You wouldn't ask a victim of a burglary to pay for the CSI work on their house, but McCain/Pain asked rape victims to pay for their own investigations. These people are beneath contempt. They are awash in the money they have been scamming from the taxpayers for the years (why does McCain and his $300 million wife still take his social security?) yet they deny rape victims the ordinary access to justice a crime victim deserves.

Any woman who votes for this ticket is a fool. A Log Cabin Republican. A Pat Buchanan Jew. A fool.

JedReport: McCain Voted Against Biden Law Requiring Free Rape Exams

In 1994, John McCain voted against legislation -- pushed through Congress by Joe Biden -- that helped put an end to the practice of charging rape victims for sexual assault exams.

Twisted as it may sound, charging victims for a forensic exam was a real problem. For example, as AMERICAblog has documented (and the media is now reporting), when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the town charged rape victims for the exams.

Biden's legislation required that state, local, and Indian governments provide the rape exams to victims free of charge as a condition of receiving federal funds under the Violence Against Women Act. In 2000, Alaska finally passed state legislation in order to qualify for federal funding.

McCain not only opposed Biden's legislation, but also has voted against funding it as recently as October 2007.

McCain voted against final passage of Biden's legislation. He had supported an earlier version, but on the question of actually making the legislation the law of the land, McCain joined 35 conservative Republicans (and 2 Democrats) and said "no" to ensuring that all women had access to rape exams free of charge.

Vet/Palin '08

Palin and her Bridge to Nowhere t-shirt

The real Sarah Palin is the exact opposite of the new politics/reformer she tried to present to the world at the Republican convention.

First, she lied her ass off in her convention speech. Not only did she not tell the feds to "give back" the Bridge to Nowhere, she supported it (even wearing a "Bridge to Nowhere" t-shirt) and kept the money anyway.

Against earmarks? Again, a bald-faced lie. Even the Wall Street Journal has concluded that this was false, and brazenly so: As governor of Alaska, she requested more money in earmarks per capita than any other governor in the nation. She was the #1 earmark seeker in DC. Against earmarks. Hogwash.

Today's hogwash:

- She paid herself to live at home, billing the state thousands of dollars for 312 nights she spent in her own home during her 19 months in office.

She billed the state for working on Thanksgiving Day, because she "had" to go to the Great Alaska Shootout basketball tournament. Governoring is hard work, as Chimpy might say.

She billed the state for "information gathering" by her husband.

She charged the state over $2,000 for a three-night stay at a $707 per night hotel room in New York City.

She doesn't know the basic economic fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private companies (that the taxpayers spent nothing on until we bought them this weekend.)

Now for the final, most disgusting public policy decision at a local level that I have ever seen. While Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the official town policy was to make rape victims pay for their own rape kits. Rape victims were forced to pay for the forensic investigation of the very crime they had just suffered through. Just despicable. ari at Edge of the American West says it best:

And yet, [] around that same time, Palin oversaw the construction of a massive taxpayer-funded boondoggle white elephant sports complex for her hometown. I’d like to make a joke here. I really would. But words fail me. What is there to say about a politician who believes that government should be big enough to provide people with hockey rinks but small enough that citizens in their darkest hour must spring for the cost of investigating the crimes committed against them?

My Friends, John McCain Is a Nasty, Nasty Man

Didja hear the one about what a jerk I am?

Geekesque at dailykos: Note to media: John McCain is a disgusting misogynist

Ask yourself what kind of man thinks the following 'joke' is funny:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’

This is a man who has opposed equal pay legislation for his entire career and has promised to appoint judges who are actively hostile towards women's rights.

That's one promise we can expect him to keep. Go ahead and ask him what he really thinks he'll do for women as President. He'll just laugh.

McCain was 49 years old when he told this joke at an appearance before the National League of Cities and Towns in Washington D.C. And he didn't learn anything as he aged, as at the age of 61 he said this:

Back in 1998, he odiously declared before a GOP crowd: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."

Yet another reason that John McCain is completely unqualified to be President. He's not a nice man.

The Real Enemy of Women Soldiers

Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

Congresswoman Jane Harman, Op-Ed, LATimes:
Rapists in the ranks
Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services.

hat tip to Suburban Guerrilla

I Hate Huckabee

Because he's a dope: The Politico: Huckabee not aware of NIE report on Iran Two days after it came out, the night after Bush gave his lying press conference, and dim Huckabee wasn't aware of it. Probably too busy consulting his Bible, and I also hate him...

Because he's a religious fanatic dope who believes things like this: dailykos: Huckabee: Gay Marriage Would End Civilization

Oh, c'mon. That's just ridiculous.

And finally, and here's the thing that should keep him from the nomination, because he forced the pardon of a convicted rapist, Mike Wayne Dumond, and Dumond promptly raped and killed at least one other woman. He did this "despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again." And why did Huckabee do this? Because the first woman the scumbag was convicted of raping was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. Clinton hatred taken to its nth degree.

He's been lying about it ever since, and this week journalist Murray Waas dug out the letters from the rape victims that Huckabee has been hiding and denying for a decade. He is a liar and a loon, a fitting successor to George W. Bush, but in no way qualified to be President of the United States.

Put Your Money Where Your Principles Are: Support Pretty Bird Woman House

This week Amnesty International reported that more than 1/3 of Native American woman are raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. A diarist at dailykos noted the study, and posted a link to Pretty Bird Woman House, a domestic violence shelter on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota that was days away from closing for lack of funds.

[t]he great majority of these horrific assaults are coming from outsiders. Outsiders who understand that these women are often isolated in remote areas, outsiders who know that the community authorities have little power to stop them, and who know that federal prosecutors have shown little interest in taking these cases.

You can donate to the shelter via paypal, or snail mail, here: