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Why do rape laws still protect spouses?

Mary Elizabeth Williams
Salon
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:17 UTC
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© Credit: Shutterstock/Salon
Washington state mulls a long-awaited change to how it defines sexual assault

Planning on raping your spouse in Washington state? The consequences are about to get a lot tougher. Maybe. On Tuesday, lawmakers in the Evergreen State began considering House Bill 1108, which would remove the spousal exemption for third-degree rape and for "indecent liberties."

Washington already has partner rape provisions for first- and second-degree sexual assault - rape that includes violence, overt threat of violence, or is perpetrated on someone physically or mentally incapacitated. Yet the state's current legal system means that prosecutors have to pursue "lesser misdemeanor assault charges" in cases that would otherwise qualify as third-degree if the victim and assailant weren't married. Washington law defines third-degree rape as occurring when "that person engages in sexual intercourse, not married to the perpetrator ... where the victim did not consent ... to sexual intercourse and such lack of consent was clearly expressed by the victim's words or conduct." There you go. You can say no, clearly and explicitly, but if you're married and your assailant didn't slap you around, it's not rape.
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Eye 1

Priest, teacher convicted in Pennsylvania church abuse case

Maryclaire Dale
Washington Times
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:13 UTC
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© AP Photo/Matt Rourke
The Rev. Charles Engelhardt
A jury on Wednesday convicted a priest and a teacher in a pivotal church-abuse case that rocked the Philadelphia archdiocese and sent a church official to prison for child endangerment.

The verdict supports accounts by a 24-year-old policeman's son that he was sexually abused by the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and sixth-grade teacher Bernard Shero in about 1999.

The accuser's 2009 complaint describing abuse by two priests and the teacher led to Monsignor William Lynn's landmark conviction last year for endangerment. Lynn is serving three to six years in prison for his role in transferring an admitted pedophile priest to the accuser's parish in northeast Philadelphia.
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Document

Tennessee "Don't Say Gay" bill would require teachers to out their students

Katie McDonough
Salon
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:09 UTC
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© Credit: Tennessee state legislature
Language in the bill also appears to endorse counseling for students who are "at risk" of being LGBT

If you thought that you'd heard the last of Tennessee's "Don't Say Gay" bill after state lawmakers abandoned the legislation last year, think again.

It's back. And it's awful.
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Camcorder

Five Broken Cameras: The documentary that should make every decent Israeli ashamed

Gideon Levy
Haaretz
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:04 UTC
A documentary on a Palestinian farmer's chronicle of his nonviolent resistance to the actions of the Israeli army.

When his fourth son, Gibreel, is born, Emad, a Palestinian villager, gets his first camera. In his village, Bil'in, a separation barrier is being built and the villagers start to resist this decision. For more than five years, Emad films the struggle, which is lead by two of his best friends, alongside filming how Gibreel grows. Very soon it affects his family and his own life. Daily arrests and night raids scare his family; his friends, brothers and him as well are either shot or arrested. One Camera after another is shot at or smashed, each camera tells a part of his story.

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Stormtrooper

The world doesn't need killer mothers: Now lady GIs can kill the poor overseas

Jay Janson
Information Clearing House
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:34 UTC
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Big step forward for society's ruling rich adding half of the population to its reservoir of cannon fodder as they heavily invest in WMD and their deployment surrounding Iran, China and Russia. But potential recruits should consider how difficult it will be to avoid self-incriminating themselves in obvious crimes against humanity and peace. An Nuremberg style trial is inevitable.

The Secretary of Defense (read War) has, by memorandum, ended the official but unheeded ban on women in combat.

It is a great step forward for society's ruling rich to have added half of the population to its reservoir of cannon fodder as they heavily invest in weapons of mass destruction, deploying them around the world, and surrounding Iran, China and Russia.

Ladies, who will supposedly be rushing to join up, will have known about, or heard a lot about, the death of millions of men, women and children for the American invasions of Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Somalia, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, the bombing of Lebanon, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Pakistan, Libya and military backed covert operations in virtually every country in Latin America, Asia and now Syria, Mali and other African nations, all to, as Martin Luther King Jr. cried out, "maintain unjust predatory overseas investments." [see King Condemned US Wars)
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Arrow Down

The politics of debt in America: From debtor's prison to debtor nation

Steve Fraser
Information Clearing House
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:13 UTC
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© Credit: CommonDreams.org
Shakespeare's Polonius offered this classic advice to his son: "neither a borrower nor a lender be." Many of our nation's Founding Fathers emphatically saw it otherwise. They often lived by the maxim: always a borrower, never a lender be. As tobacco and rice planters, slave traders, and merchants, as well as land and currency speculators, they depended upon long lines of credit to finance their livelihoods and splendid ways of life. So, too, in those days, did shopkeepers, tradesmen, artisans, and farmers, as well as casual laborers and sailors. Without debt, the seedlings of a commercial economy could never have grown to maturity.

Ben Franklin, however, was wary on the subject. "Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt" was his warning, and even now his cautionary words carry great moral weight. We worry about debt, yet we can't live without it.

Debt remains, as it long has been, the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of capitalism. For a small minority, it's a blessing; for others a curse. For some the moral burden of carrying debt is a heavy one, and no one lets them forget it. For privileged others, debt bears no moral baggage at all, presents itself as an opportunity to prosper, and if things go wrong can be dumped without a qualm.

Those who view debt with a smiley face as the royal road to wealth accumulation and tend to be forgiven if their default is large enough almost invariably come from the top rungs of the economic hierarchy. Then there are the rest of us, who get scolded for our impecunious ways, foreclosed upon and dispossessed, leaving behind scars that never fade away and wounds that disable our futures.
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Question

Sandy Hook: School shooting or government false flag operation?

Lynn Stuter
newswithviews.com
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:00 UTC
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Last week I sent out an e-mail concerning the fact that the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) shows that Adam Lanza, the alleged Sandy Hook shooter, actually died on December 13, 2012, the day before Sandy Hook occurred. I outlined, step by step, how I obtained this information, so doubters could check the facts for themselves. The SSDI record shows Adam Lanza's birth date of April 22, 1992 which has been confirmed; his birth place of Exeter, New Hampshire, has also been confirmed. The same record shows Adam Lanza's date of death as December 13, 2012.

I even sent what I had found to a local news station, along with a note stating,
Maybe you can unravel the mystery of how it is possible that Adam Lanza was the Sandy Hook shooter when SSDI records show his death date as December 13, 2012, the day before Sandy Hook occurred.
As a mainstream media source, one would think they would be curious about how Adam Lanza could possibly be the shooter when he died the day before Sandy Hook occurred. However, the local news station, a CBS affiliate, wasn't interested. One has to question, as an alleged investigative agency, why they weren't. After all, isn't truth and accuracy in journalism important? Or is the agenda more important?
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Stock Down

Trying to reform government is largely a waste of time

Steven Greenhut
lewrockwell.com
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:57 UTC
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Whenever I speak or write about California's pension and public debt problems, I always hear from well-intentioned, conservative- and libertarian-minded people who want me to consider their solutions. Most of their ideas - caps on this kind of spending or that, changed pension formulas, public votes, etc. - are sensible enough, but they always miss the main point.

That is, they misunderstand the nature of government. They think that government is an institution that does all these necessary things and can therefore be reformed. But government is a vast force-based enterprise designed to take as much money from the public and give as much of it as possible to the clients of government. It's a wealth transfer and any genuine services government provides can be done better, cheaper and more humanely in the private sector.

When it comes to pensions, there's no technical problem. In about three seconds, I can craft a non-radical, extremely modest plan that ends unfunded pension liabilities. Starting tomorrow, public employees no longer receive defined-benefit plans and instead get a 401/k-style plan like typical private-sector serfs. What are they going to do, quit en masse and get private-sector jobs? I hear readers laughing now.
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Gear

America's role in a darkening age

Patrick J. Buchanan
lewrockwell.com
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:54 UTC
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When, in the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev said, "We will bury you," and, "Your children will live under communism," Eisenhower's America scoffed.

By 1980, however, the tide did indeed seem to be with the East.

America had suffered a decade of defeats. Southeast Asia had fallen. The ayatollah had seized power in Iran. Moscow had occupied Afghanistan. Cuban troops were in Ethiopia and Angola. Grenada and Nicaragua had fallen to the Soviet bloc. Eurocommunism was all the rage on the continent.

Just a decade later, the world turned upside-down.

The Berlin Wall fell. Eastern Europe was suddenly free. The Soviet Union disintegrated. China abandoned Maoism for state capitalism.

Now, 20 years on, the wheel has turned again - toward darkness.
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Heart - Black

FBI raids office of Senator Robert Menendez campaign donor - accused of facilitating 'sex parties' for Senator with underage Dominican prostitutes

Erica Ritz
The Blaze
Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:27 UTC
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© Photo: AFP/Getty Images
US Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Over the weekend, many were disgusted that ABC conducted a lengthy interview with Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), but failed to ask him a single question about the allegations that he paid young foreigners to sleep with him. Especially considering Menendez may soon take over the prominent role of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with John Kerry's appointment as secretary of state.

While none of the claims have been proven, it appears as though the authorities may have begun expanding their investigation (it was reported by the Associated Press last month that Menendez was employing an illegal immigrant and sex offender as an unpaid intern, but that Homeland Security instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after the election).

On Tuesday night, the office of a Florida doctor who contributed heavily to Menendez' campaigns and is accused of facilitating the senator's x-rated trips to the Dominican Republic was raided by the FBI.
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