Disgraceful

Alternet: Raped in the Military? You May Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit
This outrage gives "supporting the troops" a whole new meaning.

TRICARE, the United States Department of Defense Military Health System that covers active duty members, will only pay for rape kits if the victim is seen in a military or a VA facility.

But the Pentagon acknowledges that 80 percent of military rapes are never reported. And that 80 percent who go off-base to protect their anonymity (and/or their careers) are on their own. If a soldier is on leave, or is five-hours from the nearest VA, or if a soldier is simply delivered to the nearest hospital by the local ambulance driver, their rape kits are not covered under TRICARE. Neither are other forensic exams that might be used in domestic violence situations.

Front-line treatment shouldn't be conditional on where a rape occurs or where the nearest treatment is available. This is not only a parity issue, but a further obstacle to treatment and justice.

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, "women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.

The Wasilla Project: #1

Video with residents of Wasilla, Alaska revealing Sarah Palin's history of charging rape victims for rape kits.

Dead Soul Mates

When he introduced her as his running mate last week, John McCain declared that he and Sarah Palin are soul mates. Sure they are. Dead soul mates. Both McCain and Palin were in favor of forcing rape victims to pay for the rape kits used by police in the investigation of their victimization.

These Republican hypocrites have been running around pretending to be feminists, but let's be real. They are arch conservatives who have been against every development in women's rights in their lifetimes. McCain voted against treating rape victims like the victims of every crime. He singled out rape victims for punitive treatment. You wouldn't ask a victim of a burglary to pay for the CSI work on their house, but McCain/Pain asked rape victims to pay for their own investigations. These people are beneath contempt. They are awash in the money they have been scamming from the taxpayers for the years (why does McCain and his $300 million wife still take his social security?) yet they deny rape victims the ordinary access to justice a crime victim deserves.

Any woman who votes for this ticket is a fool. A Log Cabin Republican. A Pat Buchanan Jew. A fool.

JedReport: McCain Voted Against Biden Law Requiring Free Rape Exams

In 1994, John McCain voted against legislation -- pushed through Congress by Joe Biden -- that helped put an end to the practice of charging rape victims for sexual assault exams.

Twisted as it may sound, charging victims for a forensic exam was a real problem. For example, as AMERICAblog has documented (and the media is now reporting), when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the town charged rape victims for the exams.

Biden's legislation required that state, local, and Indian governments provide the rape exams to victims free of charge as a condition of receiving federal funds under the Violence Against Women Act. In 2000, Alaska finally passed state legislation in order to qualify for federal funding.

McCain not only opposed Biden's legislation, but also has voted against funding it as recently as October 2007.

McCain voted against final passage of Biden's legislation. He had supported an earlier version, but on the question of actually making the legislation the law of the land, McCain joined 35 conservative Republicans (and 2 Democrats) and said "no" to ensuring that all women had access to rape exams free of charge.