Lt. Col. Darin Haas, the head of the sexual assault response program at Fort Campbell, Ky. was removed from his position, after violating his ex-wife’s restraining order. An unnamed Sergeant First Class (misnomer?), responsible for sexual assault  prevention at Ford Hood Tx. is under investigation for abusive sexual contact. Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, who managed the sexual assault prevention program for the Air Force, has been charged with groping a woman in a parking lot.

The face of the Air Force’s fight against sexual assault – Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski

The military’s dirty little “culture of rape” secret is now not so secret – nor so little. The Commander-in-Chief, President Obama, has taken umbrage and called for a “sustained effort” to “leave no stone unturned” in the effort to root out abuse in the military.

Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense, has said that he will hold weekly meetings on the subject.

It all sounds very responsive. But this is just bureaucratic jargon for “We’ll keep talking the talk until the media moves on to the next thing”.

Anu Bhagwati, former Marine captain and executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network, is pessimistic about the chances of cleaning up the Armed Forces. She said, “There is not a quick fix. The military can’t train its way out of this problem.”

But there is path that might hasten a solution to the problem. One politician got it half right. Sen Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) has introduced a bill that would transfer investigation of serious sexual assault away from the military if the potential sentence amounts to more than a year in prison — the equivalent of a felony in a civilian court.

But that still leaves the military to decide what is a serious offense and what should be dealt with “in-house”. Why not subject all crime in the military to the civilian justice system?

There are actions that are against military rules – such things as being AWOL or insubordinate – that are unique to the military and should be left to the military to deal with. But crimes like murder, rape, burglary etc. should be subject to one standard regardless of whether they were committed by soldiers or civilians.

Domestically crimes should be investigated by the police. Abroad criminal justice should be administered by civilian authorities using the same rules as in the US.

It is absurd that an enlisted serviceperson has to report a crime to go to his or her sergeant, who then kicks it up the chain of command until a commanding officer determines if it should be prosecuted. Our warfighters should have the same right to go directly to the police as any other citizen does.

The hostile environment that victims of sexual assault face leads to most assaults going unmentioned. In 2012  there were 3374 rapes reported. But anonymous interviews suggest that the actual number of assaults may be more than 26,000. And less than 20% of reported rapes lead to a guilty verdict.

Even after guilty verdicts, convictions can be overturned on the whim of senior officers. Last month, the commander of 3rd Air Force, Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, threw out the conviction of Lt. Col. James Wilkerson on aggravated sexual assault. He reinstated the Colonel despite a jury sentencing him to a year in jail, forfeiture of all pay and dismissal from the service.

Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin thinks he knows better than a jury.

Incredible.

And it’s not just a guy thing. It turns out that the President Obama’s nominee for vice commander of the Air Force’s Space Command, Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, overturned the sexual assault conviction of a fellow pilot. So much for the President’s zero tolerance of rape in the military.

There is precedent for stripping an institution of its separate system of justice. In medeval Europe most countries had parallel systems of religious and civil courts. Eventually, of course, the Church’s role in criminal justice was eliminated.

The Church - specifically the Catholic Church – provides one more useful contribution to the conversation on sexual assalut in the military. It illustrates what happens when an organization protective of itself also takes charge of its own policing.

Justice in the military will be unrealized as long as justice is dispensed by the military.

Republicans are determined to hang the Watergate label around the President’s neck now that it has become clear that, not only did the IRS target conservative groups, but that maybe lies have been told about who knew what, and when they knew it. 

But, before we elevate “IRSgate” to the upper echelon of political malfeasance, it would be a good idea to remind ourselves which crimes were actually committed by the Nixon administration and the President himself.

“I think that my record for being the only President forced to resign is safe for now” – Richard Nixon

Sometime during the night of June 16th/17th 1972, a group under the leadership of G. Gordon Liddy, General Counsel to President Nixon’s re-election committee, broke into the  the office of the Democratic National Committee, in the Watergate Complex. The break-in occurred with the knowledge of the Attorney General, John Mitchell, and White House Counsel, John Dean.

Nixon did not order the Watergate break-in, nor did he have any knowledge of it before the event. But he was quick to order a cover up. Subsequently he and many officials in his Administration actively impeded investigations into the break-in. It was for those crimes that Nixon eventually resigned and for which many in his Administration were convicted.

Fast forward to the present. So far there has been no evidence that anyone in the White House either ordered or knew about the IRS targeting conservative groups when they occured. In fact the man who originally started the IRS action, Douglas Shulman, was a Bush appointee.

An enthusiastic House, smelling blood in the political waters, will no doubt be turning over every White House stone. If House investigations reveal that Attorney General, Eric Holder, and White House Counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler ordered the IRS probes and then the President ordered their cover up, and if finally 48 people are found guilty of crimes in connection with the event, then we will have a Watergate level scandal.

Until then equating IRSgate and Watergate is hyperbole.

Note: Presidential 2nd terms seem to be fertile times for Presidential scandals. Reagan had his Iran-Contra affair, Clinton - Monica Lewinski and Bush Jr. – Valerie Plame. Just to name a few. It is probably due to hubris – after all you are being touted as the most powerful man in the world.

Angela Jolie revealed in an op-ed in the New York Times that she had a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction, after discovering that she had the genetic mutation BRCA1. Her mother’s death of ovarian cancer at 57 impelled Jolie to take the genetic test. The operation reduces her chances of getting breast cancer to less than 5%.

Angelina Jolie, in April 2013, after her initial operations.

Jolie has been called a Jezebel and been scorned, chastised and sneered at. But today she should be commended for her openness, honesty, and courage. By speaking of it she shows that this radical procedure is neither shameful nor does it diminish beauty.

By coming forward, instead of hiding, she will give some – maybe many – women with family histories of breast cancer the courage to get tested themselves.

Jolie also talked about how important Brad Pitt’s support was during the operation and recovery. Everyone who is a partner of a woman, who must make the same agonizing choice, should also realize how important his or her support is.

Bravo Ms. Jolie and my best wishes for your continued recovery and a long life. And I extend those wishes to all women who find themselves in the same place.

Five members of the House Commerce Committee – all Republican – have got religion about science. In a letter to Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), they challenged her not to sacrifice science to politics. Specifically they wrote,

“Despite the significant growth of natural gas development, we are greatly concerned that the scientific objectivity of the department of Health and Human Services is being subverted and countless jobs could be in jeopardy.”

A litte background here. The Obama Administration has set up an entity named – as only a government can name something – the “Interagency Working Group to Support Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources (IWG). It is charged with investigating the effects of “fracking”on the environment.

The House Commerce Committee

It is the investigations of this group that the “commerce five” are demanding be free from non-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

They are right of course. Science shouldn’t be political. Actually science cannot be political. Unlike religion, which is based on the doctrine of “trust me”, science is subject to peer review. It is quantifiable, testable, predictable and subject to proof. If new facts do not support the existing theory then that theory must be rejected.

But you do have to wonder how sincere is this passion for the scientific method. I don’t wish to seem cynical, nor can I see into men’s minds, but each of these men does have a record that might be instructive.

Chairman of the Committee is Fred Upton. He is a climate change denier. He is also the sponsor of a bill “The Energy Tax Prevention Act” which would prohibit the EPA from regulating “greenhouse gases” which would include, “water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons”. 

“Climate change floods – not us, it’s god’s choice” – Joe Barton

Joe Barton is Chairman Emeritus of the Committee. He has claimed “Global warming science is uneven and evolving”. He has also compared global warming to the biblical flood, to imply that it isn’t man made. (He was also the Congressman who apologized to BP after the Gulf disaster for the $20 billion “shakedown” – after the Administration demanded that funds be put aside to pay for the clean-up).

Ed Whitfield, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, has the 7th largest oil stock portfolio in the House.

Joseph Pitts, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, received a 7% rating from the Republicans for Environmental Protection. (He did better with the American Conservative Union, The Christian Coalition and the US Chamber of Commerce which all gave him 100% ratings)

“Climate change will not kill us – God promised” – John Shimkus

John Shimkus, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, has called C02 “plant food” and speculated that any attempt to reduce the rate of CO2 would be harmful. He also believes that mankind is safe because God promised after the flood that he wouldn’t almost wipe out the human race again.

Perhaps these men have realized the error of their ways and come to understand the nature of science. Or perhaps it is a deeply cynically plea to protect the interests of their corporate masters. Or perhaps they truly believe – despite the evidence – that they have always practiced the scientific method.

I don’t know – but I know which way I would bet.

Ask the “man in the street” what a democracy is and his answer will talk to the idea of a majority. But is that the reality of democracy in America?

Democracy not in action.

Consider this. There are 319 million Americans, but because each state has two Senators, regardless of its population - and because of an anomaly in Senate procedure that allows 41 Senators to block legislation – theoretically Senators representing just 39 million people can impose their will on the other 280 million.

It gets worse. Of those 39 million people, 24% are under 18 –  which leaves 23.4 million eligible to vote. At best 60% of those eligible go on to vote, which means 14 million will actually vote. Let’s say the winning candidates receives 60% of that vote we are left with the depressing possibility that just 8.4 million people can deny the rest of us sensible legislation.

That scenario is of course a fantasy, but it is reality that the minority can often have more say than the majority.

This senatorial distribution mirrors the distribution of votes in the electoral college. Which allows for candidates who receive fewer votes than their opponents to become President - notably Bush in 2000. That election also highlighted another problem in politics – the voting process is controlled by the politicians – which is like letting the lunatics run the asylum.

Katherine Harris became the face of the fiasco in Florida. As Secretary of State she purged the voter roles of eligible voters – disproportionately Blacks (ie. Democratic voters). And worse – not only was she the “referee” of the election she was also the Bush campaign’s co-chair in Florida – how can that be fair?

“What do you mean I didn’t get a majority, The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 for me” – George Bush.

Eventually the election was decided by five Justices of the Supreme Court – who weren’t elected by anyone. (Which also begs that question, what happened to states rights?)

While the election of 2000 might be the poster child for the dysfunctional process of selecting a President, every Presidential election is flawed. For some reason 48 states give all their electoral votes en bloc to the winner of that state’s popular vote. Which exposes us, every four years, to an incessant conversation about “battleground” states.

Except in landslides – when voting is only a rubber stamp anyway – voters in states like New York and Texas are irrelevant in Presidential elections. No matter how an individual votes in New York the state’s electoral vote will go for the Democrat – in Texas for the Republican.

Political self-perpetuation is most evident in the decennial redistribution of voters in redistricting – affectionately known as gerrymandering. In most businesses the “rules of the road” are written to benefit the business. In politics they are written to benefit the very people who are writing them. It is hard to imagine a more egregious example of conflict of interest.

The effects of this political manipulation were evident in the 2012 general election. Despite receiving fewer total congressional votes when all was said and done the Republicans still held a 33 seat majority in the House of Representatives.

It gets worse. Because there are now so few competitive seats in Congress, the real race is in the primaries – and nobody, but the most committed, votes in the primaries. Take the recent race in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional district. The district has a population of over 700,000. Mark Sanford won his primary run-off with just 26,127 votes – less than 4% of that population – before going on to win the seat itself.

America is a democracy designed by a committee. Fairness would dictate that we blow the system up and start again. But don’t hold your breath – as that would be up to the politicians – and they do not benefit from fairness.

On May 4th, CBS reported that a group called Armed Citizen Project (ACP) had announced its intention to hand out shotguns in Chicago. Their rationale is that handing out free shotguns in high crime neighborhoods will reduce crime.

Time and again studies show that more guns do not reduce crime and in fact in all likelihood increase it. It doesn’t take much thought to realize that – as high crime neighborhoods are usually poor neighborhoods – many of the recipients of these free weapons will turn around and sell them.

It is delusional to believe that more guns will reduce gun violence. It is, after all, indisputable that people in households with guns are more likely to suffer from gun violence than people in houses without guns.  

In the same week that the ACP rolled out its gun madness – and that the NRA celebrated its victory over common sense, with its annual convention in Houston – four girls were shot by their brothers, two fatally.

It is time for gun owners – who are on the whole a sensible lot – to have their interests represented by grown-ups. The NRA and yet more radical gun absolutist have been rendered so paranoid by their own rhetoric, that for them the gun debate is reduced to a choice between an unfettered right to own weapons or a complete confiscation – no middle ground.

The Supreme Court has established that the 2nd amendment doesn’t provide for an unlimited right to own guns. Lives would be saved with a few common sense gun regulations – but common sense is in short supply.

It’s never to early to think about the next election, or even the one after that. To that end let’s get started on 2016.

According to Robert Costa of the National Review, Ted Cruz, freshmen Republican Senator from Texas is eyeing the Republican nomination. On his side is the fact the “base” loves him; he is a Tea Party favorite. Counting against him is that he is a favorite of the Tea Party.

Ted Cruz – will he be the Tea Party’s golden boy?

Cruz’s candidacy would fit well with the narrative that the failure of the Republican party to win the popular vote in general elections – only one win in the last 6 attempts – is because their candidates haven’t been true conservatives. (Other less ideological observers point out that it is also possible that their candidates were way too conservative.)

While Cruz might be popular with the primary voter, the Party bosses must be praying that Cruz stumbles. On the surface he might appear to be an appealing candidate who, as a half Cuban-American, will be attractive to the Latino vote. But that is to treat latinos as a monolithic bloc. It is as patronizing to think that Latinos will vote for fellow Latinos as it is to think that an Irish-American will vote for a Polish-American simply because of the European connection.

Cruz has done little to make himself popular with Washington Republicans. Freshman senators are expected to respect their elders and toe the party line. But Cruz – presumably to establish his anti-establishment credibility – has lobbed bombs at other Republican Senators.

This might play well to the peanut gallery, but it is a short-sighted strategy if the presidency is the goal. People – no matter how much they appeal to the base – do not become the party’s nominee without the party’s support (just ask Bachmann, Perry and Cain).

Cruz has reliably checked all the boxes on the Tea Party’s wish list. While, as discussed above, he brought a presumed benefit to Republicans among Latinos he – unlike another Cuban-American, Marco Rubio – has done nothing to join the grown-up conversation of how to address the millions of illegal aliens in the US.

In fact his position is in lock-step with the law-and-order, wall-building approach to immigration.

He is equally dismal on issues that matter to other core Democratic constituencies. For women he has embraced the same misogynistic  positions on abortion and contraception that destroyed the candidacies of other myopic Republicans. That isn’t to say that women might not find his positions on the economy and defense more to their liking – but the tone of Republicans on so called “women’s issues” is so patronizing, as to be dismissive.

He even voted against the “Violence Against Women Act”.

Despite their political differences, Cruz and the man he would follow, have many similarities. Like Obama, Cruz is a freshman Senator who, if elected, would not finish his first term. His father was also not an American – Rafael Cruz was a Cuban. But unlike Obama, Cruz is foreign born – in Canada. So that will raise some interesting constitutional issues.

(In fact you can already hear the birther hypocrites doing a 180 and claiming that an American mother is sufficient to establish legitimacy for the presidency and that birth place is irrelevant)

Obama and Cruz were both selected by their Parties to give speeches at their respective National Conventions But while Obama was the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic Convention,  Cruz was relegated to the first night of the 2012 Republican Convention - not a prestigious time slot.

Will Cruz end up running? Nobody knows. But I think it safe to say that if he does he will have much of the same political bagage that the electorate has found so unattractive in 5 of the last 6 elections.

Louie Gohmert – “I spy with my little eye – Muslims!”

Rep Louie Gohmert (R-TX)  - Tea Party favorite – commented on the Administration’s handling of the Boston bombing  In trying to be even handed he channelled his inner McCarthy – echoing the late Senator’s claim of Communists in the State Department

First saying that he is not accusing anyone in the administration of sinister motives, he added, “This administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America.”

So tell use who, Gohmert.

Michele Bachmann is back, with a newly invigorated – at least according to them – Tea Party Caucus in Congress. But it didn’t take long for her to show off the gaps in her scholarship. To support her argument that the sequestration cuts in social programs for the poor are the fault  of Congressional Democrats and the President she said, “It reminds me of the Shakespeare line, ‘Thou protesteth too much’,”

People make mistakes – especially speaking extemporaneously – but if you are making a prepared speech, in the US Congress, referring to one of the most quoted lines in literature, you should get it right. The line, from Hamlet, is actually “The lady doth protest too much.”

To her credit, at least she didn’t just make up a quote - as the Tea Party is so fond of doing.

Once Sarah Palin stood steps short of the pinnacle of power as candidate for Vice President of the United States, but five years later she has sunk into a slough of despond. Tweeting about the White Correspondents’ Dinner she wrote,

I don’t know what an “assclown” is – but I suspect it may take one to know one. (Especially as Palin has attended the event in the past).

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) have introduced a bill that would limit how many bullets the federal government can buy. Why? Because – according to them – if the government buys all the ammo private gun owners won’t be able to buy any.

The claim is so silly that the NRA itself has told gun absolutists to throw cold water on it, saying, “As most gun owners will agree, skepticism of government is healthy. But today, there are more than enough actual threats to the Second Amendment to keep gun owners busy.”

How crazy do you have to be for the NRA to say you have gone too far with your gun rights argument?

In Washington – as throughout the country – immigration is subject to impassioned debate. Those who are against it issue dire warnings about a brown tide of larceny, laziness and benefit abuse flowing up from Mexico and Mesoamerica.

But what if the founding fathers had had as dim a view of immigrants as some of today’s politicians? Let’s imagine that, as the ink was drying on the Constitution, a wall was being built around the new country, and further immigration was forbidden.

The consequences?

Alexander Graham Bell would have invented the telephone and metal detector in Edinburgh.

John Roebling would have built the Brooklyn Bridge over a river in Bavaria.

The Pulitzer Prizes would be handed out in Hungary.

The first American saint would have been Italian.

Felix Frankfurter would have been a Justice on the Austrian Supreme Court.

Knut Rockne would have been a ski coach in Norway.

Irving Berin would have written “God Bless the Soviet Union” – and “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” would have been sung in Russian.

Frank Capra would have directed “Mr Smith Goes to Rome” – and “It’s a Wonderful Life’” would have been set in Sicily.

Bob Hope would have entertained the British military, Cary Grant would have been a star in the English movie industry, Hardy would have had no Laurel and Charlie Chaplin would have roamed the streets of London.

The hub of the movie industry would have been in central Europe. Sam Goldwyn and the Warner Brothers (Poland), Louis B. Meyer (Russia) and Adolph Zucker (Hungary) would have seen to it.

The “Teddy Bear” would have been called the “Nicky Bear” after Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

Tesla would have invented AC/DC electrical delivery, the induction motor, and remote control – in Croatia.

Jeans would have been the pants of choice for German workmen.

Enrico Fermi would have been the Italian “father of the atomic bomb”.

Ralph Baer would have been the German “father of the video game”.

The disc record (later LP) would have been invented in Germany, as would have been the slot machine.

The resonance guitar would have come from Slovakia and the electric guitar from Switzerland.

The ATM would have been an Armenian invention.

The transistor might have been invented in the UK.

Chevrolets would be an import – from Switzerland, as would Buicks - from Scotland.

The pencil eraser would have been invented in Jamaica.

The first fortune cookie would have been Japanese and the first Eskimo Pie would have been Danish.

Marshmallow “fluff” would have come from Canada, as would the polygraph.

The Reuben sandwich would have been created in the Ukraine as would the magnetic particle clutch.

The blender would be a Polish invention as the Q-Tip would also be.

And the adjustable wrench and pen clip would have been invented in Mexico.

But the most obvious difference is that we wouldn’t have had the workforce to build the country – no Eire Canal, no Transcontinental Railroad, no Interstate Highway System.

Nor would we have had the people to pick the produce, build the houses, mow the lawns, wash the dishes, or slaughter the meat.

Nor would we have had the manpower to have the military we did. (The “father of the nuclear navy” four-star admiral Hyman Rickover was born in Poland).

America would never have become the economic power house it was – and still could be – if we were more welcoming to both foreign-born brains and foreign-born brawn.