Archive for sexual assault

Cartoons of the Day- Military sex assaults on the rise

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Jimmy Margulies

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Dave Granlund

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Martin Kozlowski

What I will not write about today

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This is now a regular TPC feature.

Sometimes I get so frustrated and/or disheartened and/or annoyed by some of the news stories of the day that I can’t bring myself to write about them. Here are a few recent reports that made my blood pressure hit the roof. I am avoiding delving into them at length out of concern for my physical and mental health:

  • Paycheck Fairness Act Vote Blocked By House GOP: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said on the House Floor that the bill is a “liberal plot” to perpetuate the narrative that Republicans are anti-woman. Nah, they don’t need us to perpetuate that narrative, they’re doing that all by themselves.
  • Michigan GOPer Dave Agema Compares Being Gay To Alcoholism: But hey, no worries, turn that frown upside down! Because Agema says he doesn’t hate gays! He just “doesn’t agree with their lifestyle” and wants them “to know the facts of what’s going to happen to you if you stay in this lifestyle.” See?

See what I mean? So who’s up for a couple of Margs or a trough of wine?

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“Republicans tellingly showed zero interest in… the 19,000 sexual assaults of military servicewomen that occur each year.”

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Today’s L.A. Times letter to the editor, because our voices matter:

Re “Hagel hearing reopens Senate wounds,” Feb. 1

By grandstanding their grievances with former Sen. Chuck Hagel for leaving the fold to serve in President Obama‘s administration as secretary of Defense, the neoconservative Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee rubbed salt in their own self-inflicted wounds. What a shameful spectacle of badgering, interrupting and berating a decorated war veteran with a stellar record of public service.

While wasting the day on cherry-picked policy positions that don’t even pertain to what a Defense secretary does, Republicans tellingly showed zero interest in the one that does: the 19,000 sexual assaults of military servicewomen that occur each year. Kudos to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) for questioning Hagel about this “invisible war,” to which he promptly and correctly pledged no tolerance.

Wendy Blais

North Hills

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Woman claims Trayvon Martin killer Zimmerman molested her for more than a decade, his family members “proud racists”

(AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel, Gary W. Green, Pool)

We’ll find out if George Zimmerman will be tried and/or convicted for shooting an unarmed teen named Trayvon Martin. We already know he’s gotten off to a bad start by misleading the court, leading the judge to say that Zimmerman was going to jump bail with other people’s money and “Trayvon Martin is the only male whose youth is relevant to this case.”

Now we have something else that may not play well in the court of public opinion, via HuffPo:

A woman with close ties to George Zimmerman and his family told investigators that members of Zimmerman’s family were boastfully proud racists and that for more than a decade Zimmerman sexually molested her.

“It started when I was six,” the woman told investigators during an interview on the morning of March 20. “We’d all lay in front of the TV and we had pillows and blankets and he would reach under the blankets and try to do things and I would try to push him off but he was bigger and stronger and older,” the woman said, audibly weeping in the Florida State Attorney’s Office interview recording released Monday. “It was in front of everybody and I don’t know how I didn’t say anything, I just didn’t know any better.”

This went on, allegedly, for 13 years, from when she was six years old until she was nineteen.

“It’s not just me that he did these things to,” she said. The witness said that she talked to another woman who she claims was also molested by Zimmerman, but would not come forward.

Several news sources are reporting that she is a relative of the Zimmermans.

The woman has also claimed that Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin because he was black. She is the second person who suggested Zimmerman family members “harbored negative racial views.”

Since it’s important to use the word “allegedly” when discussing legal matters, let it be on the record that I am allegedly sickened.

HuffPo has audio of the witness here.

TuhWEET! Karen Finney nails the GOP on their mandate/tax code hypocrisy

Credit: REUTERS

This is why I like Karen Finney so much. She’s not a commentator, communications and media strategist for nothing, you know.

25% of calls to Navy and Marine sexual assault hot lines fail

I guess you could say at least it’s improved, but really, in what world is 25% fail acceptable?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (UPI) — One in four test calls to Navy and Marine sexual assault hot lines were not handled properly, an audit found.

The Naval Audit Service said about 25 percent of 147 test calls to sexual assault hot lines, and after-hours and victim-advocate phone numbers failed to meet standards, the Navy Times reported.

Reasons included a lack of voice-mail, messages not being returned within an hour or failure to preserve a restricted-reporting option, in which a victim can support an incident without initiating an investigation while receiving advocacy, medical and counseling services.

The service said the 25 percent failure rate was a “significant improvement” over a January audit, in which 44 percent of calls to numbers listed on Navy and Marine Corps installation and reserve center Web sites did not meet standards.

The Times said auditors make clear the “nature and purpose” of the call and don’t pretend to be sexual assault victims.

Video- Anderson Cooper rips journalist who scoffed at Lara Logan’s assault