McKeon's Sleazy Son David-- A Chip Off The Corrupt-- And Crumbling-- Old Block

Sometimes I feel like I'm preaching to the choir-- but then I get an e-mail from a Republican wanting to talk about something at DWT. A few weeks ago a Nevada Republican contacted me about Buck McKeon's shady son David, who's running for the chair of the Clark County Republican Party. David was banished to Las Vegas so his very un-Mormon behavior would stop embarrassing the family-- and so he could watch over Buck's extensive interests there. He mentioned that the reason McKeon has persistently covered up military rapes was because his own son is a known rapist. Republicans in Nevada don't want McKeon's brand of corruption tainting their party but the Mormons tend to be-- to put it mildly-- "clannish," and will always lean towards electing one of their own in a state where they have inordinate power inside the local GOP.

A few days ago a self-identified Tea Party activist tweeted that concern about David McKeon's character was spreading among Nevada Republicans. She was referring to this Nevada Politics post by Steve Sanson.

David Owen McKeon is son of controversial Representative Buck McKeon (R-CA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and is currently seeking to be Chairman of the Republican Party for Clark  County, the largest county in Nevada.  David McKeon's checkered history  is yet another troubling story in Buck McKeon's career narrative.

David Owen McKeon came to Nevada in 2009. In 2012, he was race shopping for political office. At the end of 2012, while at an organizational meeting to take over the county party from Ron Paul supporters. McKeon  was encouraged to run for Chairman of the county party. He has created a slate of officers to run along side him, has reportedly spent $10,000  to run for this position, and has taken advice from a team of political  consultants.

Since that time, McKeon has gathered support and endorsement from various coalitions. McKeon has taken out numerous radio ads, created  the NRP Voter Registration PAC with local consultant Dan Burdish (Nevada PAC of which he reports he is paying people to do registration work  with his own money and has not yet filed a contribution report), and  repeatedly states he is  spending his own money on his campaign for  county chairman.

Below is a timeline of a few of the events that can be found in McKeon’s past that, should McKeon be elected, would diminish the Republican  brand and destroy efforts of numerous political campaigns from the  Governor on down. More research is being done into further cases I have  knowledge of, but the details below are from information that was able  to be physically secure for review at this date.  You may be able to use your resources to dig deeper and make sure this man does not poison  Nevada and hurt others as he has done in California.

DOWNLOAD DOCUMENTS for Reference

• 08/98 - David Owen McKeon, DOM, Married to Monica Wallace McKeon, MWM. Child 1 born in 2000, Child 2 born in 2001.

• 09/99 - First incident of Domestic Violence (hit/push) occurred and DOM  disappeared for two weeks (Custody Petition, page 7, line 2 of  Respondent Declaration)

• 02/00 - Domestic violence incident, hands around neck of MWM while pouring  water over her to compel her to do what DOM says while 9 months pregnant (Custody Petition report page 7, line 3 of Respondent Declaration)

• 8/10/03 – MWM told DOM she wanted to leave the marriage so DOM “locked me in  our bedroom and choked me for 45 minutes, saying he wanted to kill me. I screamed and plead for my life, often feeling that I was on the brink of death. He finally stopped only after I went limp and urinated on  myself. While I was trying to recover my breath, DOM demanded that I have intercourse with him; I conceded only because I was so weak and  terrified…. Children were in the hallway banging on our door and  screaming.”  (Custody Petition, page 7, line 5 of Respondent  Declaration)

• 09/2004 – while MWM was attempting to take her child to the ER, DOM “refused to let me out the door. While Child 2 was in my arms, DOM pinned me against a glass door and slapped me five times across my  face. …. With the support of my family, I obtained a Temporary  Restraining Order against him.” (Custody Petition, page 7, line 17 of  Respondent Declaration)

• Frequent occurrence in time period of marriage– “DOM would  cover their (children) mouth and nose, so they couldn’t breathe, to stop the crying.” (Custody Petition, page 7, line 27 of Respondent  Declaration)

• 06/03 – on a road trip, DOM “shoved a sock in Child 2’s  mouth. The harder Child 2 cried, the deeper DOM shoved the sock. He  would not stop until I had managed to pull the car over and remove Child 2 from the car seat. (Custody Petition, page 8, line 2 of Respondent  Declaration)

• Frequent occurrence in time period of 2007 – 2010 – DOM threatens he will kidnap children and take them away from MWM if she does not cooperate with  DOM’s demands. (Custody Petition, page 8, line 5 of Respondent  Declaration)  Goes on with examples.

• DOM failed to identify significant change of circumstances. (Custody Petition, page 18, line 7 of Respondent Declaration)

• 08/7/04 – Request for protective order, description of battery (TRO DV McKeon, Page 8)

• 08/7/04 – Description of abuse (TRO DV McKeon, Page 20, 21)

• 03/1/07 Court made finding that DM was a perpetrator of Domestic Violence (Custody Petition, page 1, line 23 & Page 2 line 4.  Also on Page 2, line 14 states that “… custody to a perpetrator of Domestic Violence is detrimental to the best interest of the child.” In order to overcome  the designation, perpetrator must complete batterer’s treatment  program. On Page 3, the record will show no evidence of his completing  any batterer’s intervention or treatment program, alcohol nor drug abuse treatment program, nor parental counseling.

• 2009 – Contract Fraud, ordered to pay to plaintiff

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Reactionary New Dems Help GOP Pass A Fatally Flawed National Defense Authorization Act

On Friday, the House passed Buck McKeon's tragically flawed National Defense Authorization Act, 315-108. All but 18 Republicans voted YES. The Democratic minority was much more split. Hoyer and Steve Israel led 103 of the more corrupt and conservative Democrats over to the Republican side of the aisle, while Pelosi, Clyburn and Becerra led a contingent of 90 more progressive Democrats against it, folks like Alan Grayson, Barbara Lee, Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, John Conyers, Mark Pocan, Jerry Nadler, Jan Schakowsky. As always, uber-corrupt New Dem Colleen Hanabusa, who takes immense bribes from the Military Industrial Complex and is currently running against progressive incumbent Senator Brian Schatz, voted with the Republicans.

Before the vote came down, every single Democrat plus two Republicans rallied around a motion to recommit by Tammy Duckworth and Jackie Speier that would give the victim of sexual abuse in the military the power to choose whether to allow the Office of Chief Prosecutor to make the binding decision on whether a case goes to trial, or to allow the commander to proceed with the case. The DCCC was on the case immediately: "Moments ago," they told Santa Clarita media outlets, "Congressman Buck McKeon doubled down on House Republicans’ War on Women when he voted against a measure to empower victims of military sexual assault to seek justice... 'McKeon just proved that he has learned nothing from the backlash this week over the House Republicans’ war on women,' said Emily Bittner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. 'Instead, Congressman McKeon just turned a blind eye to military sexual assault victims, and it is shameful that he would oppose giving these victims more options for justice.'"

Another amendment that failed (174-249) was the one offered by Adam Smith, Jim Moran and Jerry Nadler to shut down the Guantanamo gulag. This is what Nadler had to say on the floor of the House during the debate:

“This amendment will remove the existing limitations on transfers, strike the current requests for construction at GTMO, and end funding for the detention facility on December 31, 2014.

“The time to close Guantanamo is NOW! It is a stain on our national honor.

“We are holding 166 people in GTMO, 86 of whom have been cleared for release. That is to say that they have been found guilty of nothing, and judged not to pose any danger. There is no reason and no right for us to hold them further.

“Now, Mr. Speaker, I wonder which of our colleagues doesn’t believe in the American system of justice. I wonder which one of us does not trust our own American courts. I wonder who among us does NOT believe in the Bill of Rights. Who does not believe in the right to counsel, or that people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. What we have in GTMO is a system that is an affront to those beliefs and to America.

“In the last decade, we have begun to let go of our freedoms bit by bit, with each new Executive order, each new court decision, and yes, each new act of Congress. We have begun giving away our rights to privacy, our right to our day in court when the government harms us, and, with this legislation, we are continuing down the path of destroying the right to be free from imprisonment without due process of law.

“I want to commend the gentleman from Washington and the gentleman from Virginia for fighting to close the detention facility at Guantanamo. The language in this bill without our amendment prohibits moving any detainees into the United States and guarantees that we will continue holding people indefinitely; people who are not necessarily terrorists, who we only suspect to be terrorists, who have not had a day in court to prove that they are or are not terrorists, we will continue holding them indefinitely without charge-- contrary to every tradition this country stands for, contrary to due process and civil rights.

“Because of this momentous challenge to the founding principles of the United States-- that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law, and certainly not indefinitely without due process of law-- we must close the detention facility at GTMO now in order to restore our national honor. They will have no additional constitutional rights; the Supreme Court ruled that they have the same constitutional rights in Guantanamo as they do here. We must close this facility, restore our national honor, and support this amendment.

Only two libertarian-leaning Republicans, Justin Amash (MI) and Walter Jones (NC), joined all but 21 Democrats who voted to close it down. The 21 Democrats who joined the Republicans in defeating the amendment were mostly the same right-wing shitheads who always vote with the Republicans and who are bolstered by the DCCC:

• Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ)
• John Barrow (New Dem-GA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)
• Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)
• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
• Dan Lipinksi (IL)
• Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
• Mike McIntyre (New Dem-NC)
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Nick Rahall (WV)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog-CA)
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)
• Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)
• Filemon Vela (New Dem-TX)

Of the 21 bad Democrats voting to keep Guantanamo open, 14-- the bolded names-- are on the DCCC Frontline List, representing the characters the DCCC funnels nearly all their contributions to. In other words, contribute to the DCCC and you are contributing to conservatives who vote with the Republican to further their reactionary agenda.

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Conservative Men Further Ramp Up Their War Against Women

In the video above, from Tuesday evening, Rachel discusses Republican Party self-interest. She's a smart gal but she can't get her head around how exactly it is self-interest-- considering so many women vote nowadays-- for the Republican Party, as a party, to go so conspicuously out of its way to alienate and further alienate women as a class of people. If you ever had any doubt that the Republicans are waging a war against women-- dictated by their crazy conservative and misogynistic patriarchal base-- just watch the clip. And it's not just in primitive and backward Southern states like Mississippi. Republican governors and legislators in Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio, for example, are going full bore against women as well. In fact, wherever Republicans control both the governor's mansion and the state legislature, they are passing legislation to control women's lives and force women to give up personal freedoms.

And nationally, despite the absolute certainty it will never become law, Eric Cantor and John Boehner have gone ahead and agreed to allow the House to vote on a bill by deformed and bitter Arizona closet case/woman hater Trent Franks that will criminalize abortion nationally after 20 weeks. But what Rachel didn't have time to get into in her excellent blow-by-blow in he latest developments in the brutal Republican War Against Women is a brand new development that was breaking while she was on the air. This one is primitive, savage and patriarchal... but not Republican. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and a longtime shill for the Military Industrial Complex (as well, alas, as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee) declared he's removing a measure aimed at curbing sexual assault in the military from a defense spending bill.

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, offered a measure that would give military prosecutors rather than commanders the power to decide which sexual assault crimes to try, with the goal of increasing the number of people who report crimes without fear of retaliation. Mr. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said he would replace Ms. Gillibrand’s measure-- which has 27 co-sponsors, including four Republicans-- with one that would require a senior military officer to review decisions by commanders who decline to prosecute sexual assault cases. Although Mr. Levin’s measure would change the current system, it would keep prosecution of sexual assault cases within the chain of command, as the military wants.

Mr. Levin’s decision to support military brass in their resistance to Ms. Gillibrand’s proposal sets up a confrontation between a long-serving chairman of the committee with strong ties to the armed forces and a relatively new female member-- one of a record seven women serving on the committee-- who has made sexual assault in the military a signature issue.

“They basically embrace the status quo here,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, a co-sponsor of Ms. Gillibrand’s bill. “It’s outrageous.”

A recent Pentagon survey found that an estimated 26,000 assaults took place last year. Senior military officials have repeatedly traipsed to Capitol Hill this spring to lament the problem but have been ridiculed by members of both parties of the Armed Services Committee for failing to make a dent in the problem.

In an odd twist Tuesday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, told Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Congress could seek to replace commanders in power with state prosecutors to deal with the military sexual assault cases. “To do things as they’ve always been done is not acceptable,” Mr. Leahy said.

Mr. Leahy made his comments during a spending hearing that included Mr. Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I’m just throwing that out there,” Mr. Leahy said. “I’m not looking for an answer.”

State courts already have the authority over rape and sexual assault cases should a victim choose to go to civilian law enforcement, but such cases are rare because the military prefers to prosecute its own personnel.

“If word gets out that the military justice system is not properly attentive to these cases, military personnel will vote with their feet,” said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School.

The House this week is expected to pass its own defense bill, which contains provisions to punish sexual assault crimes in the military more harshly and make it difficult for commanders to overturn convictions.

The Senate bill is also expected to include measures that would provide victims of sexual assault with a special military lawyer and that would automatically remove convicted sex offenders from the military. Other expected provisions would require a commander to provide written justification for any decision commuting or lessening a sentence after a guilty verdict in a court-martial.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, is in the meantime still holding up the nomination of Lt. Gen. Susan Helms of the Air Force to become vice commander of the United States Space Command because General Helms overturned a jury conviction in a sexual assault case without public explanation.

“I continue to have deep concerns with Lieutenant General Helms’s decision, while a commander and courts-martial convening authority, to overturn the jury verdict of a military court-martial in which the jury found an Air Force officer guilty of sexual assault,” Ms. McCaskill said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record.

Ms. Gillbrand may have a chance to renew her measure on the Senate floor this summer, something she will almost certainly seek. “Senator Gillibrand has nerves of steel,” Mr. Fidell said. “Whether her bill is what Congress should enact I don’t know, but I commend her for standing her ground.”

Levin, age 78, won't be seeking a 7th term in the Senate. This is another example of old men trying to control the lives of younger women. There's a deep generational and gender divide on these issues and it's tragic that a Democrat rather than some reactionary fossil like Chuck Grassley, Jim Inhofe, Richard Shelby or Pat Roberts would be holding the banner for Bronze Age misogyny-- and rape-- today.

UPDATE: A Message From The Fighters For Equality At The DCCC

Steve Israel and Co. are up in arms over the anti-Choice Republicans. Let's see how many of the top priority Frontline Democrats they fund-- like Matheson, Barrow and McIntyre for exampl-- vote with the Republicans on this.

An all-male group of House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee is expected to pass a bill today that will ban abortions nationally after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The measures makes no exception for cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s health is jeopardized.

Americans consistently rate jobs and the economy as their greatest concern, not re-fighting battles over a woman’s right to choose. The measure, sponsored by anti-woman zealot Trent Franks of Arizona, is expected to be sent to the full House for a vote next week and would effectively overturn Roe vs. Wade.

“Today, another all-male group of House Republicans will interject their ideology between a woman and her doctor, effectively overturn Roe vs. Wade, reverse our rights and open yet another front in the war on women. Yet again, House Republicans are trying to prove that they’re the most extreme, anti-woman legislature in American history,” said Emily Bittner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “House Republicans are blindly focusing on the tired ideological battles of the past like a woman’s right to choose, rather than focusing on problem-solving. And the American people know that every day House Republicans waste fighting over ideology is a day they refused to solve our country’s problems.”

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How Buck McKeon's Mormonism Played Right Into The Military Rape Epidemic Coverup

Last summer the cover-up of the epidemic of military rapes at Lackland-- engineered by House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon-- began to unravel, due, primarily, to the tireless efforts by Protect Our Defenders. POD battled McKeon's determination to cover up the scandal and keep it out of the public view. At all times, he insisted on closed briefings rather than the public hearings this kind of scandal demanded. And who was McKeon's point person on the Committee, with his own peculiar take on rape? Todd Akin, of course. It was two of Congress' most backward, patriarchal and misogynistic Neanderthals that John Boehner put in charge of "protecting" the Pentagon... and leaving the rape victims to twist in the wind. This from last summer:

For one of the most misogynistic members of Congress, Buck McKeon, the decision on whether or not to have an open hearing on rape in the military was easy. No! That’s been the answer given to Protect Our Defenders (POD) and Lt. Paula Coughlin-Puopulo, USN (ret.) who delivered 10,000 signed petitions to McKeon asking for an open investigation into the sexual assaults at Lackland Air Force Base. Some may remember Lt. Coughlin as the whistleblower in the Tailhook Scandal in the early 1990’s where 83 women and 7 men were sexually assaulted in a Las Vegas Hotel. A statement from POD read, “More than 20 years ago, 87 servicewomen were sexually assaulted while serving in the U.S. Navy, in what became known as the “Tailhook scandal.” Paula was one of the 87. The former Naval aviator reported the incident to senior officers, but they did nothing. So she went public. Today, Paula is going public again demanding Rep. McKeon open a congressional hearing about Lackland and then legislate fundamental reforms.”

A closed briefing was held instead and one general reportedly asked McKeon not “to hobble base commanders” in determining how to handle sexual assault cases.

Military sexual assaults have been put back in the spotlight after 38 female Air Force recruits came forward with complaints of sexual assault or rape by instructors at Lackland AFB. Fifteen instructors have been implicated and two already found guilty. One awaits sentencing and another given only 30 days’ confinement and a reduction in rank-- a punishment criticized by POD asserting the military doesn’t take these crimes seriously.

I'm in the middle of reading Rana Husseini's courageous book on how men brutally enforce their will on women, Murder in the Name of Honor. Much of the book covers her beat as a journalist and activist: so-called "honor" crimes in her native Jordan. But she goes beyond Jordan and talks about the dynamics of these horrific and barbaric crimes against women around the world. Patriarchy is so ingrained that even many women are ready to blame the victims like this 25 year old Jordanian with a Masters degree in economics:

"Women are the source of seduction for men and if all women are chastised then men would become good on their own. We are in a Middle Eastern society and I am for punishing women more than men because men cannot resist the seduction of girls who are dressed improperly... When women are punished, fear of their families will build up among them and they will think twice before committing any immoral mistake."

She was talking about women who are brutally, savagely murdered by their own families because they are raped-- and about the murderers who go unpunished by patriarchal legal systems-- whether sharia courts in Muslim countries or outmoded military chain of command decisions in our own Pentagon.

In an interview with Jordan Member of Parliament Mahmoud Kharabesheh for the Jordan Times Husseini found an attitude that many privileged males feel all over the world: "Women adulterers cause a great threat to our society, because they are the main reason that such acts [of adultery] happen. If men do not find women with whom to commit adultery, then they will become good on their own." Well, if they can't find a woman to rape, some rape children or other men. Others turn to sheep. And when Jordan decided to start allowing women deputies in Parliament, religious conservatives there reacted the same way religious conservatives did here. A deputy from Amman's fourth district, explains Husseini, "strongly opposed the idea. He said that being an MP was a man's job; a woman can jeopardize her honor by going out late at night to take part in related social activities. If his daughter stayed out late at night he would shoot her himself, he added. He told the gathering that a woman's presence in Parliament 'would be damaging, since a woman in the house would distract make deputies and stir trouble when male deputies instinctively look at her breasts.'" Husseini traces these attitudes back to the primitive Bronze Age origins of the three Abrahamic religions:

This has its roots in numerous ancient texts, including the Old Testament, specifically Deuteronomy (22:12- 21), where proof of the bribe's virginity could be presented to both sets of parents in the form of stains on the bedsheets. If an unwed woman was found not to have been a virgin, then she was to be punished by being stoned to death.

This was convenient for men in a patriarchal society who might be paranoid about "his" woman comparing his prowess in the sack with other partners. And, all across the patriarchal world even murdering women who are perceived as not living up to the patriarchal rules, is forgiven because it is judged to be in "accordance with tradition." A Pakistani Senator insisted that "We have fought for human rights and civil liberties all our lives but wonder what sort of human rights are being claimed by these girls in jeans."

In February 2008 an Islamic fundamentalist shot and killed a government minister because of her refusal to wear a Muslim veil. Zilla Huma Usman, the Punjab Provincial Minister for Social Welfare, was shot as she prepared to address a public gathering in the town of Gujranwala. The attacker, Mululvi Ghulam Sarwar, said that he was opposed to the participation of women in politics and the refusal of many professional women in Pakistan to wear the veil.

Speaking to a local TV channel, he said, 'I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah's commandment. Islam will not allow women to hold, positions of leadership. I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path. if I am freed again.'

What about Iraq, where the Bush Regime proclaimed that women's rights would be at the center of the project to make Iraq a democratic model for the rest of the Arab world? In Iraq women's rights have deteriorated dramatically since the start of the U.S.-led coalition's occupation.



And this kind of patriarchal mentality is certainly not unique to the Muslim world.

In Brazil, it is widely believed that a man can legitimately kill allegedly adulterous wife on the grounds of honor and such cases are regularly treated with leniency in the courtroom. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of women killed by their husbands from the 1970s to the late 1990s for leaving or divorcing their husbands, returning home late from work, refusing to sleep with their husband, suspicion of adultery or because they had been caught in an adulterous situation.

So what does this have to do with Buck McKeon's Mormonism and how he orchestrated the cover-up of the military rape epidemic? After all, Mormonism isn't the same as the Muslim faith, even if both were rooted in extreme patriarchy and polygamy... right?

Anyone who has lived among Mormons has observed the sect’s legendarily happy families and tight-knit communities. They are self-satisfied, devout and abstemious; overwhelmingly white and middle to upper class. Hard working, acquisitive, conservative and disciplined. A whopping majority of them consider helping the poor a top priority-- an admirable quality even if their anti-poverty efforts are mostly directed at their own ranks.

...Mormonism is a valid issue of concern not as a religious test for office, but for its most distinctive characteristic — male authoritarianism. The controversial and secretive religion is a multibillion-dollar business empire ruled by a stern patriarchal gerontocracy. Only “worthy males” can ascend to positions of power-- both now and in the afterlife-- and women are relegated to supporting roles. Male dominance is the essence of the faith, as the Mormon feminist Sonia Johnson found when she was excommunicated for her support of the Equal Rights Amendment. In her memoir, From Housewife to Heretic, Johnson describes a patriarchal world in which everyone is taught that "God, being male, values maleness much more than he values femaleness, that God and men are in an Old Boys’ Club together, with God as president.”

Protecting the victims of rape was the last thing on Buck McKeon's mind as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Protecting the old boys' network at the Pentagon was. This week President Obama called the military heads into his office for a chat. He had a very different perspective:

[O]ne of the great honors of my life is serving as Commander-in-Chief to what I consider to be the best military in the history of the world. And I am in awe of the work that the vast majority of our men and women in uniform do.

But the reason we are so good is not because of the fancy equipment. It’s not because of our incredible weapon systems and technology. It’s because of our people. And the capacity for our men and women in uniform to work as a team, a disciplined unit looking out for each other in the most severe of circumstances, is premised, as Ray Odierno said, on trust. It comes down to do people trust each other and do they understand that they’re all part of a single system that has to operate under whatever circumstances effectively.

The issue of sexual assault in our armed forces undermines that trust. So not only is it a crime, not only is it shameful and disgraceful, but it also is going to make and has made the military less effective than it can be. And as such, it is dangerous to our national security  So this is not a sideshow. This is not sort of a second-order problem that we’re experiencing. This goes to the heart and the core of who we are and how effective we’re going to be.

Now, the good news is I am absolutely confident that everybody in this room and our leadership, starting with Chuck Hagel and Marty Dempsey and the Joint Chiefs, as well as our top enlisted men and women, they care about this. And they’re angry about it. And I heard directly from all of them that they’re ashamed by some of what’s happened.

But it’s not fixed yet, and that’s clear. So even though I think there’s a level of concern and interest that is appropriate, we haven’t actually been able to ensure that our men and women in uniform are not experiencing this, and if they do experience it, that there’s serious accountability.

So what I’ve done is I’ve asked Secretary of Defense Hagel and Marty Dempsey to help lead a process to continue to get at this. That starts with accountability, and that means at every level. And that includes accountability not just for enforcing the law, but also training our personnel effectively, putting our best people on this challenge.

I think Secretary of the Army McHugh made a very good point, which is I’m not sure we’ve incentivized some of our top people to understand this is as core to our mission as anything else. And we’ve got to reward them, not think of this as a sideline for anything else that they do, but incentivize ambitious folks in the ranks to make sure that they understand this is important. So that’s part of accountability.

Empowering victims. We’ve got to create an environment in which victims feel that they’re comfortable coming forward and they know people have their backs, and that they will work through this process in a way that keeps the focus on justice and make right what’s been wrong as opposed to suddenly they’re on trial, it may weaken their position, it make compromise their ability to advance.  That’s going to be important. They’ve got to know that they should have no fear of retaliation, no fear of stigma, no damage to their careers, and certainly no protection for criminals.

Third thing is justice for the victims. When victims do come forward, they deserve justice. Perpetrators have to experience consequences. And I’m pleased that Secretary Hagel has proposed reforms that would restrict the ability of commanders to overturn convictions after trial. Those reforms have my full support.

...I want to emphasize-- everybody in this room has heard from me directly. They’ve heard from Secretary Hagel, and they’ve heard from Marty Dempsey. They all understand this is a priority and we will not stop until we’ve seen this scourge, from what is the greatest military in the world, eliminated.

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Ooh please, could we have Todd Akin to kick around some more? (Or wait, are we sure that's what we want?)

Hear Todd talk: "It's one of those things that depends on the circumstances really. I don't rule anything out. I consider it a bright new future and I'm interested to see what the possibilities are."

by Ken

Well, if Mark "Hikin' the Appalachian Trail" Sanford can make a comeback, why not Todd "The Bitches They Be Askin' for It" Akin? Washingtonpost.com's Aaron Blake reported this afternoon:

Todd Akin opens door to a comeback

Former congressman Todd Akin (R-Mo.), in his first interview since his 2012 Senate campaign imploded after his comments about "legitimate rape," says he's not ruling out another run for office.

"It's one of those things that depends on the circumstances really. I don't rule anything out," he told KSDK-TV. "I consider it a bright new future and I'm interested to see what the possibilities are."

Akin also had some sharp words for Karl Rove, who like many Republicans has criticized Akin's 2012 campaign as woefully inept.

"I think I lost one race; he managed to lose about 12 of them in one night," Akin said.

(Worth noting: If Akin had been able to run in more than one race in 2012, there's a good chance he would have lost the other ones too.)

For more, see the full interview here.

First off, for the umpteenth time, could we make it clear that the lamebrain thug never suggested that there is such a thing as "legitimate rape," and at this point I think it's air to ask anyone who suggests that he did whether they consider themselves morons or just liars. What Saint Todd in fact was suggesting -- and it's really impossible for anyone with a working brain to honestly misunderstand the point -- is much worse: that there is a teensy, weensy occurrence of violent sexual episods that legitimately qualify as rape, the obvious implication being that all the other cases where women cry "rape!" are illegitimate. Presumably either the bitches wuz lying' or they wuz askin' fer it. And what they really want is abortion on demand.

This is, I have no doubt, exactly what our Todd believes, and not just Todd. As far as I can tell (as we've pointed out here often) his views on rape are identical to those of Paul Ryan, and very likely a host of other right-wing fake-moral doodybrains. Todd just happens to be possibly a shade stupider but unquestionably a degree more indiscrete than the rest of these clowns, who wouldn't know actual morality if it blasted their tiny brains to smithereens. Hiding just under the surface is the belief that the proper role of the wimmins is to be the wholly owned property of Good Christian Mens and to provide the traditional barefoot-and-pregnant servitude that God spelled out in the Bible. (Scratch just a millimeter deeper and you'll probably find that for wimmins that don't know their place, the occasional punching out by their Good Christian Mens is God's Plan.)

This seems to me way more revolting than the foolish notion that these people are saying there's such a thing as "legitimate [in the sense of "okay"] rape," and I wonder if it's entirely accident or incompetence that makes the infotainment noozemedia unwilling to discuss the actual belief, which perhaps strikes too close to home for the infotainment noozers.

ALL OF THAT SAID . . .

It occurs to me to wonder whether we're absolutely sure we want Todd back in the headlights. The obvious assumption is that he's so toxic, he can only do public harm to his ideological cohorts. Last time out, he was caught in an exposed position, making the jump from his old House seat to the Missouri statewide Senate race, at a time when the Gotcha Press Corps was lurking. Especially once you scratch away the layer of confusion about what he meant, what he believes is now practically "mainstream" on the over-the-edge-of-sanity Right.

And I worry about every benchmark of respectability those people manage to lay claim to.

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