Tag Archives: rape

crime news, State news

Eliminate rape? Umm … how?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott officially has lost his ever-lovin’ mind.

He has signed a bill that bans abortion in Texas virtually across the board. It says women cannot terminate a pregnancy after the sixth week when most women — as I understand it — don’t even know they’re pregnant.

The new law also does not exempt women who have become pregnant as a result of rape or incest. Abbott’s response to a question from a reporter about that?

He said he is going to “eliminate all rape in Texas.” What? Huh? How in the world does he propose to do that?

No law ever written has deterred a madman from attacking a woman, forcing himself on her and impregnating her. No law can ever prevent rape from occurring. None! What in the world is Gov. Abbott saying here?

Do not misunderstand me on a key point: There are few things in the world I would want more than to see an end to violent sexual assault … such as rape and incest. However, it cannot be legislated. It cannot be mandated just because a governor, or a legislature, or Congress or the president declares his or her intention to “eliminate” it.

Women will continue to be raped. Some of them will conceive children as a result of that dastardly act. Now, under Texas law, they will have to carry that pregnancy to full term and these women will have to give birth to someone who came into their lives as the result of a violent crime.

Someone will have to explain the humanity of that law to me. Anyone? I’m all ears.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Yep, it’s still a man’s world

There can be no doubt about it, that it’s still a man’s world out there.

How do I know that?

Consider a new law that took effect in Texas on the First of September. It creates a criminal act for a woman who receives an abortion any time after her sixth week of pregnancy.  Furthermore, the law makes no exceptions for women who are raped or impregnated by someone in an incestuous encounter.

Ah, but what the rapist or the lecherous uncle or brother or father who does the deed that gets the woman in trouble? What happens to him?

There is no apparent connection between the abortion and the source of the pregnancy, meaning that a rapist faces no sterner penalty if he is convicted of the crime.

My only thought at this stage of the discussion is that if the state is going to make it a crime against a doctor and the woman to make a life-changing decision such as terminating a pregnancy, then the state ought to throw the book at the beast who rapes a woman and forces her to make that decision in the first place.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

How do you rebuild?

You hear about stories like this on occasion. They trouble me beyond measure. I feel the need to express a thought or two about the consequences of stories such as this one.

I don’t know the origin of this social media meme. It certainly rings tragically true to me.

My question  of the moment is this: How do you build your life after spending years in prison for committing a crime that — in this instance — never happened? A young man broke down when his case was dismissed. I wish him all the very best as he seeks to build a life.

He is not alone. I hear all the time about individuals who are set free after spending decades behind bars. DNA tests are brought into play to determine whether these men (usually, they are men) were present at a crime scene. The tests disprove what prosecutors “proved” back when these cases went to trial.

A judge then releases these individuals. They are sent into the world after spending 10, 20, 30, maybe 40 years in the slammer. This is one of those instances that I have difficulty wrapping my noggin around.

How would you react? Would you be filled with anger at a system that imprisoned you wrongly? Would you feel relief? How about forgiveness?

These cases offer life lessons I never, ever want to learn. Then again, at the age of nearly 72 years on this good Earth, it’s not likely I would have enough time left to learn them if given the chance.

Science and technology have advanced far beyond what many of us ever could have imagined. The world of criminal justice is just one venue where we see these occasional miracles play out as individuals are set free.

However, I must ask: How do these advances prepare these folks to retrieve time that has been ripped from them in their relentless march?

As for the question posed in the picture you see along with this post about whether women should be charged — or jailed — for filing phony rape charges.

Well … that could be a start in restoring justice.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Speaking ill of the dead

I am sure you’ve heard it said one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.

Well, I am about to speak ill of someone who’s just croaked.

Mary Kay Letourneau has died of cancer. This individual will go down in history as a principal player in one of the 20th century’s most bizarre and ghastly sex scandals. She used to teach school in a Seattle suburb. She was married and the mother of four children when one of her students — a 12-year-old sixth-grader — caught her attention.

Letourneau then decided to seduce the boy. They had sex. She was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison. She and her husband divorced.

After she got out of prison, Letourneau married the boy. They produced two children before that marriage ended.

As The Associated Press reported: Seattle attorney Anne Bremner represented the police in that lawsuit, and befriended Letourneau, visiting her in prison and meeting her for lunch after her release.

“She accepted that it was a crime and that she had to serve her time, but when she got out she didn’t dwell,” Bremner said. “She moved forward in a very positive way and raised those girls. She was somebody I rooted for. I really wanted her to do well, and she did.”

That’s the lawyer’s call. It isn’t mine. Mary Kay Letourneau was a sexual predator who should have served even more time in prison than she did. This world is a better place now that she has left it.

national news

Rep. King needs to go … get with it, Iowa voters!

I normally wouldn’t care what a two-bit member of Congress from far-away Iowa thinks about anything.

Except that Steve King, an ultraconservative Republican with a history of making fiery remarks about this and/or that happens to vote on laws that affect all of us far from his western Iowa congressional district.

So, when this clown pops off, it reflects badly on all of us.

What has he said … this time? He told The Des Moines Register that rape and incest are largely responsible for the existence of the human race.

Hoo, boy!

“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” he said.

Hey, there’s a bit more. “Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can’t say that I was not a part of a product of that.”

That’s it! Humanity exists because many of our forebears raped women or had sex with their siblings or even their own children!

Isn’t that simply mind-boggling in the extreme?

This is the guy who once told us about “illegal aliens” with “calves the size of cantaloupes” smuggling drugs into the country. He also recently said he doesn’t understand how the term “white supremacy” has gotten such a bad rap.

OK, he’s one of 435 members of Congress. He also thrusts himself into the spotlight on occasion with remarks such as the nonsense about rape and incest.

And remember, too, that he writes and votes on laws that affect all of us. You and me.

Does he make you proud? I, um, didn’t think so.

national news

‘Consensual rape’? No such thing, buster

A Republican state lawmaker has joined the ranks of politicians who “misspeak” when they discuss the rape of an individual.

The latest inductee into the Rhetorical Hall of Shame is Missouri state Rep. Barry Hovis, who declared that most rapes occur during dates or when a woman “consents” to it.

Yes, he called it “consensual rape.” The reason for the discussion in the first place is the Missouri Legislature’s action on a bill that outlaws abortion with only one exception: the health of the mother.

Rape or incest don’t qualify as exceptions, under the proposed Missouri law.

Rep. Hovis, of course, was dead wrong in calling an act of violence against a person to be a “consensual” event. Rape is rape. No one “consents” to being sexually assaulted against their will.

Of course, Hovis said he “misspoke”; he added that he doesn’t believe rape is “consensual.”

Too late, bub. The damage is done.

national news, political news, Sports news

An actual rapist asked to speak at GOP gathering?

tyson

This one is too good to let pass without comment.

Donald J. Trump threw out the term “rape” this week while commenting on the trade agreements he vows to toss aside if he’s elected president of the United States later this year.

The United States, he said, has been “raped” by nations with which we’ve have dealt through NAFTA, CAFTA and whatever other international trade agreements we’ve signed.

So, who did the presumptive Republican presidential nominee reportedly invite to speak at the GOP convention this summer in Cleveland?

Mike Tyson, an actual convicted rapist felon. That’s who.

Trump has denied formally inviting Tyson, but said the former boxer would do a “good job” if he gets to speak at the convention. Really? We’ll see.

Tyson is the former heavyweight boxing champion who got thrown into prison after a jury convicted him of raping a beauty pageant contestant.

On one level, I’m glad that Tyson seems to be turning his life around.

However, his prison record will be there for the ages. Indeed, his obituary likely will mention it somewhere near the very top of the text.

These reports about Tyson do seem to have this air of believability to them, no matter what Trump says to the contrary. Given the reportedly sparse list of GOP dignitaries willing to speak at the Republican nominating convention, Trump well might need to dig deeply to find enough celebrities to fill all that valuable prime broadcast time.

Irony, though, can be a real booger… you know?

national news

Iran, nukes … and Bill Cosby

Well, that about covers it.

President Obama’s press conference today was meant to explain the details of the recently completed negotiation to stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon.

Then the question turned to Bill Cosby and whether the president could revoke the comedic icon’s Presidential Medal of Freedom on the basis of the rape charges that have been leveled against him by several women.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/asked-about-cosby-obama-says-civilized-nations-cannot-tolerate-rape/ar-AAd1eHQ

Obama’s answer was deft and on point.

There’s no precedent for revoking such a medal and there’s no mechanism now to do it, he said.

Cosby received the medal in 2002 from President George W. Bush. The world didn’t know what it knows now of what Cosby allegedly has done. It’s been reported recently that court documents show that he admitted to giving Quaaludes to women and then had sex with them.

It’s all quite disgusting.

Obama then ventured his own view on what he considers to be rape. “I’ll say this: if you give a woman, or a man for that matter, without his or her knowledge a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape,” the president said.

OK. By my understanding of what is known, I believe Bill Cosby has admitted to being a rapist.

Should the White House revoke his Medal of Freedom?

Leave the issue alone — and let Bill Cosby try to fend off the lawsuits that are going to bury him.

medical news, political news

Stop talking about rape … period!

1 Comment

Another politician has stepped in it yet again over the issue of rape.

When will these clowns get the message that there can be nothing good or redeeming about a savage sexual attack?

The latest addition to the pantheon of schmucks who’ve entered the rape discussion is West Virginia Republican House Delegate Brian Kurcaba who said that while rape is “awful,” something good can come from it if the produces a baby.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/west-virginia-republican-says-rape-can-be-beautiful-if-it-produces-a-child/

Arrrgghhh!

Kurcaba wants the state legislature to enact a law that bans abortion after the 20-week gestation period of a pregnancy. Of course, he doesn’t want any exceptions granted for the victims of rape.

He now joins the likes of former U.S. Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, who proclaimed that victims of “legitimate rape” have ways of “shutting down” a pregnancy; and the we have Richard Mourdock of Indiana who said while running for the U.S. Senate that a child born from a rape is a “gift from God.”

Both of those fellows lost their campaigns for the Senate. Imagine that.

Now we have Brian Kurcaba stepping into the fray.

Here’s a political tip, young man: Don’t seek higher office.

 

Sports news

Sportsmanship lacking on both sides

Collegiate student-athletes must lose with class and they must win with it, too.

The Oregon-Florida State college football playoff semifinal game was fun to watch — particularly if you’re an Oregon Ducks fan, as I am. The Ducks blew out the Seminoles 59-20, ending FSU’s 29-game winning streak and dispelling the notion that the Ducks aren’t tough enough to play at this level of collegiate football.

The end of the game, though, produced some decidedly unattractive behavior.

With about a half-minute to go in the game, about two-thirds of the Seminoles walked off the field toward their locker room. They didn’t stay to shake the Ducks players’ hands, wish them well, congratulation them on the game they played. They skulked off the field, shaken by the battering they had taken.

You need to lose with class, yes?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/02/oregon-jameis-winston-no-chant_n_6405182.html

Then came the Ducks’ display of bad manners. About three Oregon players began some kind of chant about “No means no,” referring to FSU quarterback Jameis Winston’s off-the-field trouble involving a woman who accused him of raping her. Winston was never charged with a crime.

Second-year Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich said the players would be “disciplined internally,” adding that their conduct reflects poorly on the school and the football program.

Yes, you also need to win with class.