Please stop electing Republicans

A parental rights bill intended to prohibit medical procedures on minors without parental consent could also end up unintentionally protecting sexual predators who abuse children.

The new law, which went into effect July 1, prohibits minors from getting sexual assault exams, or rape kit exams, without parental consent. This becomes problematic if the perpetrator of the child’s sexual assault is a parent, family member, or close family friend, according to Deb Wetherelt, Idaho State Police sexual assault nurse coordinator.

  Idaho Capital Sun

Men supporting women

These men got arrested for their trouble.

In perspective

But how common are false rape allegations, really? What constitutes “false?” And what evidence is there of the “psychic, familial, reputational and professional harm” suffered by those people on the other end of those accusations? The Cut spoke to Joanne Belknap, a sociologist, criminologist, and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

  The Cut

Continue reading.

This is a thing in Kansas?!

Think about it.  "Having sex during traffic stops" sounds like rape, to me.

Sexual relations are now outlawed for police “during the course of a traffic stop, a custodial interrogation, an interview in connection with an investigation, or while the law enforcement officer has such person detained,” The Kansas City Star reported Thursday.

  The Hill

Yep. That's rape. And if I'm not mistaken, rape is already illegal, even in Kansas.

But wait. It's not just Kansas.

New York passed a similar bill last month, closing a loophole in the state law by specifiying that people in police custody are unable to consent to sex.

WTF, people?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A rapist mobster in the White House

Not to put too fine a point on it.

As it turns out, yes. The most significant aspect of the Stormy Daniels case is not the sexual relationship, which she says was consensual [...] What matters is the Trump team’s alleged use of non-disclosure agreements, payoffs, and threats to intimidate a target into silence.

[...]

Shortly after her 2011 interview, Ms. Daniels says she was threatened by one of Mr. Trump’s associates while with her infant daughter: “A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’” she told Anderson Cooper. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.’”

Shaken by the focus on her daughter, Ms. Daniels was too terrified to even go to the police. She stayed silent for five years, and in 2016, took a US$130,000 payoff from Mr. Cohen to stay that way. This was a sensible course of action given Mr. Trump’s four-decade history of getting ruthless lawyers to threaten any potential opponent with financial ruin – a pattern that begins with Mr. Trump’s employment of political operative Roy Cohn in the 1970s and continues with Mr. Cohen today. Mr. Trump’s main weapon of choice may be the NDA, but his team makes sure to imply that other weapons can be used as well.

In July, 2015, shortly after Mr. Trump declared his candidacy, the Daily Beast attempted to report on court documents stating that Mr. Trump had raped his ex-wife, Ivana. The inquiry into the case prompted a response from Mr. Cohen that mirrors the threat to Ms. Daniels: “I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting,” Mr. Cohen told the Daily Beast reporter. “You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up … for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet …”

Few media outlets reported on the allegation after that, and the media were similarly timid in reporting other allegations of sexual assault – most notably, that of a 13-year-old girl who said in a lawsuit that Mr. Trump raped her in 1994 while in the company of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a friend of Mr. Trump’s who was an alleged trafficker of underage girls. In her affidavit, the alleged victim claims that Mr. Trump told her to stay silent since he was capable of having her whole family killed, and noted that another victim, a 12-year-old named Maria, had disappeared.

On Nov. 2, 2016 – a few days before the election – that accuser and her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, were scheduled to hold a press conference. According to Ms. Bloom, the press conference was abruptly cancelled due to intense threats to their safety, including a bomb threat. Two days later, the accuser dropped her lawsuit.

  Sarah Kendzior @ The Globe and Mail

Rape kits stuck on a shelf

In 2009, 11,341 untested sexual assault kits — the results of an hours-long process that collects evidence from the body of a rape victim — were found during a routine tour of a Detroit police storage warehouse, some dating back to 1984.

[Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy] and her team started the long and laborious process of testing those kits, investigating the crimes, and prosecuting the perpetrators — and launching Enough SAID, an effort to raise the money to complete the work.

[...]

Ten thousand rape kits tested. One hundred twenty-seven convictions won, 1,947 cases investigated, 817 serial rapists identified.

[...]

In one city, in one county, in one state, we had 11,341. That means a couple of things: Number one, this problem is a lot more pervasive than people could ever have imagined. Number two, (that's) on top of the very low rate that people report in the first place. That means there is much more sexual assault going on, that it's much more pervasive than people think. I think nationally the number is about 20% of rapes that are reported, and when you get to the prosecution stage it's very, very little ... that's very sobering, very sad and very pathetic.

[...]

There are estimated to be 400,000 untested rape kits in the country.

[...]

A rapist rapes on average seven to 11 times before they're caught. ... Of our set of 817 ... over 50 of them have 10 to 15 hits apiece.

[...]

There has [to] be a (sexual assault kit) protocol, and there is now in the Detroit Police Department ... Police officers [no longer] make that decision, they just all go [to be tested].

[...]

Legislation that was signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2014 ... created ... standards for when kits get to the lab — 14 days to take it to the lab and 90 days to turn it around, assuming lab has the resources. And that's statewide.

The other huge change that we made here in Wayne County ... is the training. Training officers on how you're supposed to treat victims ... about the neurobiology of trauma. When a potential victim comes into the police department and is laughing or has a flat affect, it doesn't mean they weren't raped. We reviewed many many police reports where the officers dismissed (victims) because they didn't act the way they thought they should act.

[...]

They just closed cases, even cases where I think they believed the victim ... They closed cases because the women had worked as prostitutes or had mental illness issues or had substance abuse.

[...]

One of the reasons we have these untested rape kits ... and I can use Detroit as an example, 86% of our victims in these untested kits are people of color. You're not going to find too many blond-haired, blue eyed white women ... Because their kits are treated differently, their cases are solved. That's just the way it is in this country.  [...]  People may not want to admit it, but I've seen it throughout my career and I know it's true.

[...]

[W]hen you get these kits tested, it can help exonerate someone, potentially. Some of these cases had already been tried. What I talk about all the time, is just in our kits, in one state, in one city, they have tentacles to crime scenes in 39 other states. And finally, the fact that once these hits get into CODIS (the FBI's Combined DNA Index System database), law enforcement can solve more than just sexual assault. They can solve homicide, can solve breaking and entering, because the crimes in other states we're talking about are not just sexual assault.

  Detroit Free Press

NYC redefines rape

It's now on-the-job sex.

Un-fucking-believable.

A loophole allowing them to have sex on duty.  WTF?  This is not sex.  This is rape.

A Brooklyn City Councilman is looking to make it illegal for police officers to have sex with people in their custody in the wake of an investigation into two Coney Island detectives accused of raping a teenager.

  DNA Info

One CANNOT "have sex" with someone in their custody. That's rape.

The push for legislation comes as the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office investigates detectives Richard Martins and Eddie Hall, who are accused of handcuffing an 18-year-old during a traffic stop, forcing her to perform oral sex and raping her in an unmarked van.

[...]

According to the woman’s lawyer, the pair picked up the young woman during a traffic stop in Calvert Vaux Park in Gravesend and drove her to a nearby Chipotle parking lot, where they told her she could have sex with them or go to the precinct.

The lawyer, Mark David, said both detectives forced her to perform oral sex on them and one of them raped her, all while she was handcuffed. But the officers have claimed it was consensual, sources said.

Consensual in the sense that she consented to that rather than a jail cell?!

Councilman Mark Treyger, who represents Coney Island, said he would draft legislation that would close the existing loophole in the law — which bans correctional and parole officers from having sex with detainees or parolees on the job, but does not prevent on-duty police officers from having sex with people they encounter in the course of their work.

How the hell would that be a loophole? The only people who should be having sex while on the job are sex workers, but for the love of Pete, it's not illegal, and shouldn't be. It could be a condition of their job that is signed into their contract of work if employers and hires so agree, but when someone is in handcuffs or in a jail cell, they are not simply "people they encounter in the course of their work!" WTF?

And, does the ban actually say "on the job"?  So, after their shift is over, it's okay?

Treyger wrote in a statement posted online [...] “We do not need a change in laws, however, to understand that what occurred was deeply, morally wrong.”

So why in the name of Sam Hill are you drafting one?  You surely already have rape laws.

Jesus wept.

Jesus, Even the Semi-Sane One Is a Dick

Kasich, the Ohio governor seen as a moderate in the GOP race, was participating in a town hall campaign event in Watertown, New York, in advance of the state’s presidential primary on Tuesday.

[...]

A young woman who identified herself as a first-year student at St Lawrence University in Canton, New York, asked the candidate what he would “do in office as president to help me feel safer and more secure regarding sexual violence, harassment, and rape,” according to an ABC News report.

Kasich told the student to draw on school resources. “You ought to absolutely know that if something happens to you along the lines of sexual harassment or whatever ... you have a place to go where there is a confidential reporting, where there is an ability for you to access a rape kit, where that is kept confidential, but where it gives you the opportunity to be able to pursue justice, after you have had some time to reflect on it all,” he said.

[...]

"I’d also give you one bit of advice,” said Kasich, who has twin 16-year-old daughters. “Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol.”

  Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Continuing Our March to the Dark Ages

At least two people have died and a further seven exposed to a deadly strain of drug-resistant superbug bacteria at a hospital on the UCLA campus. Authorities are notifying 179 more people that have potentially been exposed.

[...]

Doctors at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, where the outbreak occurred, believe the moment of infection happened “during complex endoscopic procedures that took place between October 2014 and January 2015,” according to CBS.

“These outbreaks at UCLA and other hospitals could collectively be the most significant instance of disease transmission ever linked to a contaminated reusable medical instrument,” believes Larence Muscarella, a safety consultant at Ronald Reagan.

[...]

A total of 32 patients were infected with contaminated endoscopes at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle between 2012 and 2014, the hospital has acknowledged last month. The infection was a similar strain to the CRE found at UCLA.

[...]

Although the scopes were sterilized in accordance with standard procedure, their very construction carries with it a risk of bacterial buildup. It turns out the scope could have transmitted the infection during a procedure “to diagnose and treat pancreaticobiliary diseases,” at least that is the working theory at this time.

  RT

So….once infected, is a person contagious?

The superbug itself is difficult to treat, and there is risk that “This bacteria is emerging in the US and it's associated with a high mortality rate,” Dr. Alex Kallen with the CDC told the LA Times. “We don’t want this circulating anywhere in the community.”

That sounds like a “yes”.

In other regressive news:

Taking a page from the National Rifle Association and tapping into the national spotlight on sexual assault on college campuses, lawmakers from Florida to Nevada are introducing legislation to permit the carrying of firearms at universities.

Eleven states are considering such proposals, the New York Times reported.

  RT

Let me ask it, even though it seems obvious…won’t perps be carrying? Or will permits only be issued to women?

What could possibly go wrong?

And then there’s this tidbit…

EU member states have voted to allow secret evidence to be used for the first time in one of Europe’s highest courts.

All but one of the EU’s 28 countries agreed to let the General Court of the EU to consider evidence, including from intelligence agencies, in closed sessions.

Only Britain abstained after it demanded more assurances that any sensitive evidence it hands over would be safeguarded.

  The Bureauof Investigative Journalism

Et tu, Europe?

And They SAY They Don't Want Sharia Law in Virginia

According to Think Progress, Norfolk [Virginia] police classified all sexual assault claims as “unfounded” by default.

The rules changed in the wake of a case involving a 22-year-old woman who reported a sexual assault only to be told by police, “If we find out that you’re lying, this will be a felony charge.”

The woman was attacked in her home by serial rapist and diagnosed sexual sadist Roy Ruiz Loredo on April 22, 2012. Over the course of reporting the crime, police repeatedly expressed skepticism that the woman was telling the truth, even after the woman submitted to an exhaustive physical exam.

“You’re telling us a different story than you told … the other detectives,” they said to her, as well as saying “This only happened hours ago. Why can’t you remember?” Finally in frustration, the woman terminated the interview with police.

However, a forensics investigator was able to lift DNA from the woman’s attacker off of a cup he used at the crime scene. Eight weeks later Loredo was arrested in Virginia Beach, VA when he tried to attack three women near his neighborhood.

[...]

In the wake of the department’s mistakes, Norfolk police chief Mike Goldsmith announced that there will be changes in police policy toward sexual assault victims, including the assumption by officers that people who report assaults are telling the truth. Officers will also be trained in helping victims cope with rape trauma and post-traumatic stress.

  Raw Story

Call me skeptical, but it’s a start.

In Other Whistleblower News

You may recall an article that I wrote back in January discussing the Steubenville, Ohio rape case. It was a case where members of the town’s high school football team were charged with repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting an unconscious young girl and it also exposed the community support these alleged rapists had. In that case a local unit of the Hacktivist group, Anonymous, published tweets and pictures of the alleged rapists. One of the citations or links that I provided in the article has since been taken down and now the local Anonymous activist had his home raided by a FBI SWAT team and may be charged with hacking into the high school website and could face a potential 10 year sentence for the alleged crimes! You may ask what are the sentences that the now convicted rapists are facing? Since they were minors at the time of the alleged serial rape, they are facing 2 year sentences.

[...]

“We certainly hope the United States comes to its senses and decides not to indict, and if they do we will aggressively litigate the incident,” said [Jason Flores-Williams of the Whistleblower’s Defense League].

[...]

I guess it is becoming safer to cheat and steal millions using the mechanisms Wall Street has at its disposal than to actually speak up about a heinous crime committed against a defenseless woman!

  Lawrence Rafferty

Without a shred of doubt.

Pistorius

And this is what I have to say about that: I heard on the radio that the US media is not reporting what has come out in a big way in South Africa, and that the South African media is covering: the rampant violence against women in South Africa. It was reported that 40% of men there polled admitted to hitting or beating their female partners, and fully one in four men has raped a woman in his lifetime.

Anatomy Lesson

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Oy!

Jean sends word that in Boone County, Missouri - Todd Akin's state - the GOP voted on whether to ask him to stand down, and the nays won. She reports that one woman gave her reason as: if abortion is allowed in cases of rape, then women wanting abortions will just claim that they've been raped.

Presumably because all women are as utterly ridiculous as she and unable to follow through a thought process about the consequences of making such a claim.

Abandon hope.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Sunday

A former Roman Catholic priest was found guilty on Thursday of hiring a hit man to kill a boy who had accused him of sexual abuse.

John Fiala, 53, showed no emotion as a Dallas jury found him guilty of plotting to kill the boy, according to The Dallas Morning News. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

[...]

The former priest had claimed that he only hired the hit man because he feared for his own life.

  RAw Story