This just disgusts me so badly I don't even know what to say about it. Sick: Republican Lawmaker Likens 11 Yr Old Rape Victim to a "21 Yr Old Prostitute":

Displaying the standard Republican concern for women and children, Florida GOP lawmaker Kathleen Passidomo had this to say about a recently publicized case in which an 11 year old girl was allegedly brutally gang raped:

There was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute. And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students.

Passidomo made her comments during a subcommittee hearing about the vitally important issue of banning saggy pants in schools. When queried about her horrifying statement, she naturally just deflected the blame: "Thank you for your concern, I was not referring to my own opinion to the cause of the rape, but to the cause implied by a March 8th article of the New York Times."

Here's more from Think Progress -- FL GOP Rep. Says 11-Year-Old Was Gang Raped ‘Because She Was Dressed Like A 21 Year-Old Prostitute’:

A Florida state house subcommittee passed a bill — the so-called “Sagging Pants” bill — that would require state school districts to adopt a dress code that prohibits students from “wearing clothing that exposes underwear or body parts in an indecent or vulgar manner.” “This would make for a better school district and more productive students,” said the bill’s sponsor Rep. Hazelle Rogers (D). Referring to a horrific story of an 11-year old girl in Texas being gang raped by as many as 17 men and boys, GOP florida lawmaker Kathleen Passidomo — taking a page from Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s book — applauded the measure with an offensive justification:

See the above quote from the AlterNet article.

And again from AlterNet -- What Kind of Sick Culture Blames an 11-Year-Old for Being Gang-Raped?:

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Well, it looks like Sharron Angle’s favorite refuge Fox News can’t manage to do a report on her without exposing just how extreme this woman really is. The network aired a special Sunday night, Fox News Reporting: The Fight to Control Congress and one of the featured races was the Nevada Senate race with Sharron Angle facing off against Harry Reid.

During the segment, Fox's Carl Cameron lays out for their viewers just what Angle's positions are that she's been criticized for.

Cameron: What precisely she’s advocated; phasing out Social Security and Medicare, withdrawing from the United Nations, abolishing the EPA and much of the tax code and banning all abortions. But it’s not just the positions that Angle has taken, it’s how she’s defended them. She suggested that entitlement programs “spoiled our citizenry”, that it may be part of God’s plan that rape victims get pregnant and to some she even seems to sanction armed insurrection, a “Second Amendment remedy” is what she called it, if Harry Reid isn’t beaten at the ballot box.

In what world is talk of "armed insurrection" brought up as though it's just business as usual and not something to put a few exclamation points behind? Good grief. Never mind, I already know the answer to that, in ClusterFox's world where the rhetoric that was formerly reserved for the gas bags on right wing radio is being mainstreamed as normal.

And then later in the segment we get treated to Sharron Angle defending why she's been running from most of the press in Nevada.

Cameron: There was a tremendous amount of discussion about Sharron Angle’s taking the defensive posture.

Angle: We needed to have the press be our friend.

Cameron: Wait a minute! Hold on a second… to be your friend?

Angle: Well truly…

Cameron: It sounds lame…

Angle: Well, no, no, we wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported and when I get on a show and I say send me money to SharronAngle.com, so that your listeners will know that if they want to support me they need to go to SharronAngle.com.

So she explains why about the only place she'll come on is right wing media outlets like Fox but Cameron pretends to be shocked... and she's begging for money on the air again. Wonderful.

One last note on this. Does anyone else think that the interview she and Cameron did could have just as easily been a parody segment on either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report? Carl Cameron even has some of the same facial expressions when he's talking to her that we see out of Jason Jones and Stephen Colbert.

Fox is making their own parodies and they don't even realize it.

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November 18, 2009 C-SPAN Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing

Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice

From Air America's blog--Al Franken Takes On Eric Holder Over Rape Kit Backlogs:

But Franken, staying true to his welcome focus on women's issues, asked Holder what Justice is doing about the immense backlog of untested rape kits, which can often yield DNA evidence that allows the police and prosecutors to close cases. Congress provided money under the Debbie Smith Rape Kit Backlog Reduction Act in 2004 and 2008 to reduce those backlogs, but there is no reliable database of how many rape kits haven't been tested and major backlogs remain in many errors.

And from Sen. Franken--Remarks By Sen. Franken to the Innocence Project:

The work of the Innocence Project has already led to 245 post-conviction DNA exonerations. And in four out of every ten of those exonerated, DNA testing identified the actual perpetrator.

When you consider that you’ve only looked at a small subset of all of the cases out there, the conclusion is pretty clear: there are innocent people in prison and on death row, and guilty people walking the streets.

The former should weigh heavy on our conscience. Both should be a cause for concern… and action.

Some people think efforts to exonerate the wrongly convicted are somehow soft on crime. I think it’s just the opposite – your efforts are not just morally right, they’re tactically smart – they help us ensure that innocent people are not wrongly incarcerated while the actual perpetrators walk free to commit more crimes.

There’s a lot of debate in progressive circles about what has changed under the Obama administration, and what hasn’t. But one thing has certainly changed: We have a government that believes in science once again.

Believing in science means acting on what the science tells you.

So what does the science tell us when it comes to crime?

Well, this February, the National Academy of Sciences released their comprehensive, two-year review of forensic science in use throughout American crime labs.

They concluded, and I’m quoting:

“Many forensic tests… have never been exposed to stringent scientific scrutiny. With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis… no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source.”

I participated in the hearing where those findings were released, and as we questioned witnesses, what became clear is that there have been many false convictions based on improper, or at best ineffective, forensic techniques.

And that tells us we need to reassess how our criminal justice system does business.

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Heather: As Megan Carpenter noted Sen. Franken pressed A.G. Eric Holder about the number of non-violent offenders incarcerated in America every year and stayed true to form with caring about women's issues. Everyone from Minnesota should be very proud to have Al Franken as their Senator with the good work he's doing.

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From Think Progress-- Rape Victim Confronts Vitter Over His Vote Against Franken’s Amendment Holding Contractors Accountable:

Last month, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts if companies “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Although the amendment passed, 30 Republican senators voted against it.

One of the Republicans singled out for especially harsh criticism following the vote was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who has a track record of siding against women’s rights. The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that at a town hall meeting this past weekend, a constituent confronted Vitter about his vote. The woman, a rape victim, demanded that he explain why he opposed Franken’s amendment. Vitter refused to give her a straight answer.

As Sam Stein noted at the HuffPo--"The exchange was contentious, heart wrenching, and potentially damaging."

WOMAN: It meant everything to me that I was able to put the person who attacked me [behind bars]. And what allowed me to do that was our judicial process. I showed up in court every day to make sure that happen.

VITTER: And I'm absolutely supportive of any case like that being prosecuted criminally to the full extent of the law.

WOMAN: But there are rape victims who are being kept silent.

WOMAN: But how can you support [a law] that tells a rape victim that she does not have the right to defend herself?

VITTER: Ma'am The language in question did not say that in any way shape or form.

WOMAN: But it is unconstitutional to have a law that says a woman does not have a right to defend herself.

VITTER: You realize Mr. Obama was against that amendment that his administration was against that amendment

WOMAN: But I'm not asking Obama. I'm asking you.

VITTER: Do you think he's in favor in rape?

WOMAN: I'm asking you Senator. What if it was your daughter who was raped? Would you tell her to be quiet and take it? Would you tell your daughter to be silent?