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It looks like Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III decided to give his fellow Armed Services Committee member, Saxby Chambliss, a run for his money to see who could make the most absurd statement during the hearing on sexual assault in the military this Tuesday.

GOP Senator Suggests Porn Is To Blame For Military Sexual Assaults:

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) detoured from a line of questioning about sexual assault in the military to raise the possible connection between the availability of pornography on military bases and sexual attacks on servicemembers.

Sessions joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in time for its second panel of the day, having missed the first session due to a conflicting meeting of the Budget Committee. Once there, Sessions wasted no time diving into the issue, asking several questions of the assembled military commanders in the panel.

During his questioning, however, Sessions brought up his concern that access to pornography on and around military bases was creating “problems” among the soldiers, sailors, and pilots:

SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, I’d just add a letter, a document here that was given to me from Morality in the Media. Pat Truman used to be in the Department of Justice. I knew him when he was there. He points out that, a picture here of a newsstand and an Air Force base exchange with, you know, sexually explicit magazines being sold. So, we live in a culture that’s awash in sexual activity. If it’s not sold on base, it’s right off base. There are videos and so forth that can be obtained, and it creates some problems, I think.

Sessions then immediately segued into asking questions about the panel’s responses to sexual assault situations, asking what they would do if “you had a female soldier who had felt she was assaulted by an NCO, higher rank,” leaving his previous comments hanging in the air. He didn’t return to them during the rest of his questioning, leaving his full meaning unclear. However, while a few studies have found that pornography makes men more sexually aggressive, there’s no real-world evidence bearing out the claim that this translates into sexist attitudes or sexual violence. In fact, many more recent studies have been unable to show causation between viewing pornography and carrying out sexual violence. Read on...

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Self-proclaimed television prophet Cindy Jacobs recently warned people with Native American heritage that they should "repent for their ancestors' animism" because they are particularly vulnerable to evil spirits.

In an episode of her web series 10 Minute Prayer School last week, Jacobs said that the Leviathan spirit described in Job 41 was often the cause of "divorce, tribal wars, church splits, family feuds, sibling rivalries, ministries breaking up."

"If you have in your bloodline any animus [sic], any Native American blood, for instance -- not all Native Americans worshipped the serpent or crocodile, many did -- but you might want to renounce that and repent for the generational iniquity," she explained. "If you are -- perhaps you're Mexican and you might have indigenous blood in you or Mayan blood, those who have Aztec blood in any way, you need to repent for the sin of animism before you begin to deal with this spirit."

On an episode of her God Knows television show earlier this year Jacobs asserted that durable shoes were a “supernatural” miracle from God.

"We believe we’re moving into a supernatural season, where if needed, God will multiply food," she told her husband and fellow prophet, Mike. "But the point is we were promised supernatural provisions."

"I mean, I remember one time that I had a pair of shoes that I wore and wore and wore and wore and it just — for years, these shoes did not wear out. And I wore them years and years and years."

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

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Jake Tapper had ex-FreedomWorks Dick Armey on to comment on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's democratic decision to opt for a Special Election to fill the seat of recently deceased Frank Lautenberg rather than appoint some placeholder Republican for 18 months. Armey was not pleased.

DICK ARMEY: "This is what rankles conservatives. There's not a Democratic governor that wouldn't have seized the opportunity to appoint a Democrat senator, no matter what the status. In some states they may try to sell it and get rich off it as they did in Illinois. All Christie has to do is appoint a Republican. That's the correct move for him to make."

"Now, I put it down as debilitating stupidity, the first rule of politics is don't lose the friends you already have for the friends you're never going to get. And if he thinks the Democrats are going to love him for being the guy who plays fair rather than takes the political opportunity he's crazy.

"Democrats hate Republicans. Democrats aren't going to vote for Republicans. They're not going to get a break from Democrats. They will use him, Obama will use him for political cover as he's done twice now and then actively campaign against him."

For some reason, Armey thought the politically expedient move of appointing a Republican was far preferable to letting the voters of New Jersey decide. Armey also called congressman Frank Pallone a "shoo-in", I guess forgetting that Cory Booker is the overwhelming favorite in the Democratic Primary, to be held in August with the odd timing (most have said politically calculated) of a general election to be held in mid October.

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Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) on Tuesday suggested that the "hormone level created by nature" was to blame for rapes in the military and that all pregnant servicewomen should be investigated to make sure their condition was the result of consensual sex.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on sexual assaults within the military, Chambliss opined that the Pentagon's decision to allow women in combat roles was only going to make the problem worse.

The Georgia Republican recalled that "several years ago when we had the first females go out on an aircraft carrier, when they returned to port, a significant percentage of those females were pregnant."

"Was any investigation made by the Navy following that incident to determine whether or not all of those pregnancies occurred as a result of consensual acts?" he asked Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert.

The admiral replied that he did not have details of the incident immediately available, but he pledged to follow up.

Chambliss noted that Democratic proposals to modify the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and take sexual assault reporting outside of the victim's chain of command might not work because young servicemen were being driven by their "nature."

"The young folks coming in to each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23," he pointed out. "Gee-whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. So, we've got to be very careful on our side."

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Republicans just can't help themselves, can they?

Via the Washington Post

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) said Tuesday that America’s educational troubles began when women began working outside the home in large numbers.

Bryant was participating in a Washington Post Live event focused on the importance of ensuring that children read well by the end of third grade. In response to a question about how America became “so mediocre” in regard to educational outcomes, he said:

I think both parents started working. The mom got in the work place.

Bryant immediately recognized how controversial his remark would be and said he knew he would start to get e-mails. He then expanded on his answer, saying that “both parents are so pressured” in families today. He also noted that America seemed to be losing ground internationally in regards to educational outcomes because other nations began to invest more in their own school systems and make progress.

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As both David Ferguson at Raw Story and Jason Easley from PoliticusUSA explained, Sen. Ted Cruz and Fox guest host on Cashin' In this Saturday, Eric Bolling, both think that lowering taxes on the rich, while raising taxes on the poor and the middle class is just a wonderful idea.

Cruz is just the latest in a string of Republicans to be piling onto the IRS in the wake of the recent scandal mongering, where they're using the debacle over the 501(c)(4) so-called "social welfare" groups and their tax exempt status to make the IRS into the big boogeyman on everything from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, to every conservative who has ever been audited coming out of the woodwork to claim that they were a politically motivated target of the IRS. And now we have genius Ted Cruz calling to just abolish the IRS altogether and for a flat tax.

From Raw Story: Ted Cruz pushes for flat tax but wants to abolish the IRS:

“We ought to abolish the IRS and instead move to a simple flat tax, where the average American can fill out our taxes on a postcard.” Cruz told Fox’s Eric Bolling in an interview.

“Put down how much you earn, put down a deduction for charitable contributions, for home mortgage and how much you owe. It ought to be just a simple, one-page postcard,” he continued.

Cruz insisted that taking “the bureaucrats” out of Washington and the process of collecting taxes would curtain abuses of power by the IRS.

Cruz did not mention what agency will take the place of the IRS when collecting these tax revenues, nor did he allow for the fact that creating a single tax rate on every dollar earned would go even further toward increasing income inequality in the U.S. by lowering taxes on the wealthy and raising them on the poor and middle class.

And PoliticusUSA: Ted Cruz’s Petition to Abolish the IRS Goes Horribly, Laughably, Ridiculously Wrong:

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Sen. Tom Coburn didn't go as far as his cohort, Sen. Lamar Alexander, who accused Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of acting just like Oliver North during the Iran-Contra scandal -- but he was still willing to accuse her of breaking the law by soliciting private donations to help implement the Affordable Care Act after Congress cut the purse strings.

Coburn appeared on this Monday's Your World With Neil Cavuto to discuss Republicans demands that there be an investigation into whether Sebelius violated any appropriations and ethics rules, and while he was more than willing to imply that the HHS secretary might have broken the law, he was careful to parse his words while doing so:

COBURN: I have no doubt in my mind they have broken US code by augmenting their appropriations. I've had several large insurance executives tell me that they were asked to contribute to this. So we're just beginning on this, but if it's not illegal, it should be and it's for sure unethical and it is definitely a conflict of interest to extort money from the very people that you regulate.

As Think Progress pointed out a few weeks ago, Republicans didn't mind it so much when they did the exact same thing during the last administration: Senator Who Criticized Sebelius For Soliciting Donations Asked For Private Funds While Serving In Bush Administration:

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Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Sunday predicted that Christians and other people in Florida would deface the first atheist monument to be placed on government property.

In a news release last week, American Atheists President David Silverman explained that a 1,500-pound granite bench was being placed at the Bradford County Courthouse because atheists have often felt like "second-class citizens."

The monument was part of a settlement after Bradford County refused to remove a Ten Commandments monument that was installed at the courthouse.

"Sure it's legal, the question is, is it necessary?" Carlson asked Fox News contributor Father Jonathan Morris. "I thought atheists -- and atheism, of course, is a species of religion -- were against religious monuments on public property."

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Sunday night's episode of HBO's 'Game of Thrones' appears to have traumatized millions, or at least those who've never read the book by George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords.

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Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday blasted House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) as "the biggest joke in all of Washington" and said he should apologize for calling current White House Press Secretary Jay Carney a "paid liar."

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Issa had said that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) practice of improperly scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of conservative groups had been "ordered from Washington." But under questioning from CNN host Candy Crowley, the California Republican admitted that his evidence was "totally not definitive."

Issa added that Carney was a "paid liar" and "still making up things about what happens and calling this [IRS agent] a local rogue."

"Darrell Issa should call Jay Carney and apologize this morning," Gibbs told MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Monday. "He's laying out the charge and then saying it might be true. And then he's saying, 'As the investigator, I know where I want to get, now I'm just getting around to proving it.'"

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