The Invisible War

There have been very few occasions in my life that I can legitimately say I can feel my world view irrevocably shift, but tonight was one of those times. Though I am a political science/ Pre Law major, I took a Media and Culture class this semester as an elective credit. Our homework I kid you not is to watch tv, listen to the radio and go to movies. We get to go to private screenings of movies where the actors and directors speak and we just write reports on it. For this assignment we had to attend the Dallas International Film Festival. There was a list of movies that we could use our free pass to see and I had intended to go see one about a Russian model on Thursday, but due to scheduling conflicts I had to instead see a military themed documentary this evening. As I got to the theater I looked around and saw the typical Urban Outfitters crowd of which I cannot begin to stand. The movie that I and the cast of Juno looking crowd was lining up to see was called The Invisible War and was from its description about women being raped in the military.

Let me first off say I do not get emotional. Like ever. Unless it's something to do with a dog or a monkey dying then I'm a mess. However, this movie ALMOST made me tear up on multiple occasions. What is happening in every branch of the United States military is UNBELIEVABLE. According to statistics gathered by the United States government and featured in the film, 500,000 women have been raped in the military since women were permitted to join. Mind you this is just a guesstimate since only 20% report it because their higher in command they report it to are often times the friends of the assailant or the assailant themselves. This problem isn't limited to women though with statistics suggesting 1% of men in the  military are sexually assaulted a year. Another reason these reports are never made is that when a woman reports a man often times the investigation into him is dropped or the evidence is lost then the investigation is turned on her with charges brought against her and in the cases featured in the movie, she is dismissed from service. The percentage of men in the military who have prior to joining either committed or attempted a rape is 15%, more than double the average in the civilian population.  20% of rapes in the military are reported. Of that 20%, only 2% of those will be convicted. All of the women featured were assaulted on US soil. The worst place for sexual assault was presented to be the Washington DC marine base that works with the White House and President.

What is the military doing to prevent this? Making videos that they show once a year. Hanging posters that say "Don't risk it... wait till she's sober". Telling girls they should never walk around base alone.

I could throw you statistics that I made sure I memorized at you all day, but the most shocking portion of the film was when a law suit was brought to congress by a group of women who had been violently assaulted, congress ruled against them because "rape is an occupational hazard of being in the military."

When all of the women and one of their husbands were asked if they would tell a young woman to enter the military they all said no. One even went up to a woman she overheard talking about joining and tried to talk her out of it.

Complete and utter shock. I am an ardent supporter of our military, but this shook me to my very core. People always ask me why I like politics and why I want to be a politician. This right here. I want to make a difference in cases like this. If you get a chance, watch this movie. It will change your life. It did mine.

Brazil, Colombia, Las Vegas is Where the Party's At

 GSA official considered to be the "head honcho"

No, I did not die. The semester is coming to a close and in the next 13 days I have 36 pages worth of research papers to write. Man I <3 college...


The American government however does not seem to have the same too busy to breathe problem though. There are currently two major scandals going on in regards to how A) Tax payer money is spent and B) Secret Service agents convinced some Colombian women to holla fo a dolla if ya know what I mean.


First thing is first, the GSA (General Services Administration) flew interns from all around the country to Palm Springs on the tax payer dollar apparently every year as a "thank you"and reportedly at least one of them was treated to a lavish suite. This was in addition to the $820,000 the GSA was found to have spent on an October 2010 conference just outside of Las Vegas for 300 federal workers. Want to hear the irony? The GSA's job is to police government expenditures on conferences and real estate.


Want to know how you spend this kind of money on a conference? $700,000 was spent on pent house suites, tuxedo rentals, a mind reader, a clown, a $75,000 team building bicycle activity (wtf?), yearbooks, souverneir books, commemorative coins for those who came and those who couldn't come and catering. "What did they eat?!" you might ask. Well, “Petit Beef Wellington,” “Mini Monte Cristo Sandwiches,” “American Artisanal Cheese Display,” 1,000 sushi rolls for $7.00 apiece, a “Pasta Reception Station,” a “Boursin Scalloped Potato with Barolo Wine Braised Short Ribs.” The GSA spent $44 per person on daily breakfasts. Their reasoning for this was that they were only permitted $93/ night per room so they promised the hosting hotel they would mak it up to them in food charges. $136,000 alone was spent on "scouting" trips on which the scouts were told to make this event bigger and better than all of the previous conferences while staying in suites at the Ritz Carlton.


Why this is bad: This was TAX PAYER MONEY.
Why this is good: This was TAX PAYER MONEY and is erupting at a time when President Obama is promoting heightening taxes despite the strong belief in the government misspending money. Buffett tax anyone?


Now For scandal dos:

New official song for the Secret Service:)


The Latin American Summit was held in Colombia with President Obama in attendance. The secret Service Agents that accompanied him were the ones making the headlines however as they were accused of having hired prostitutes on the eve of the president's visit. The Secret Service sent 11 of its members home early for misconduct and 10 military members who were also in the same hotel are suspected of wrong doing. Boys will be boys?

Now, this is not so much a scandal as it is just very unpleasant. Hillary Clinton has been dubbed "Swillary" after photos of her emerged drinking beer from the bottle and dancing in a club in the early hours of Sunday morning while in Brazil for diplomatic reasons. Kinda comes off as that mom (grandma even, the lady is 64) who busts in to her child's party and tries to act cool.




UPDATE:
Bill Clinton has asked that the next time the president or his wife go to South America that he be invited.

Obamacare Would Add to Deficit... A Lot.

By now if you haven't heard of Obamacare and its impending Supreme Court case as to the constitutionality of its requiring all Americans to have health insurance, you are obviously under a giant rock of ignorance. A study is being released today by former Bush administration official and well known conservative economist, Charles Blahous.

Those in the "non-partisan" Congressional Budget Office have stated that repealing this law would increase the national deficit by $210 billion between 2012-2021. This seems like a substantial amount of money, and it is, but it pails in comparison to the approximately $1 trillion the United States is adding to the deficit annually in recent years.

In Blahous' 52-page report, he cites numerous unforeseen consequences in the bill. One of which is that the bill could in fact dramatically raise costs of healthcare for uninsured low or middle-income people as their employers could opt to scale back the coverage provided due to rising costs. The cost control measures such as the planned taxes on high-end insurance plans that would come in to play in 2018 are expected to not generate as much revenue as originally thought. The plan as of now is to use the savings form Medicare to help fund these endeavors, but then that creates the problem of finding new ways to fund the program to prevent it from going the way of Social Security.

This is all being put down by the White House however as they are blaming poor math for Blahous' conclusions. They argue that the bill would actually decrease the deficit by billions. Personally, I am more inclined to believe Blahous...

Promo!

Busy, busy day! Paper due tomorrow, volunteer get to know each other event for the Grant Stinchfield campaign in a bit then off to Frisco to watch (and then meet!:)) the New England Revolution. 

However, I must take a minute to give credit where credit is due. Remember that guy who you were in high school with and frequently ran in the same crowd with but never really spoke to much? Well this is him: http://austinreid911.blogspot.com/

He is just getting started out in the blogging world and is quite the political savant, if I do say so myself. Our texts/ phone calls have given me SO much material for not only this but my academic endeavors as well. He is DEFINITELY worth checking out.

*Austin, I hope you like this picture but if you don't then too bad. Get Facebook back:) 

Response

Aw Coco, you deleted your comment before I got a chance to reply. No fear! I received an email of it so I can still adress it. Rather than give out my email to a stranger, I thought it would be prudent to adress your grievances here since you apparently view this blog. 

First of all, my posts were motivated by a friend of mine and I being subjected to severe anti-white rhetoric in downtown Dallas as a large and intimidating group of Trayvon Martin advocates attacked us based on our race not knowing that we both had found the Trayvon Martin case to thus far being a blatant miscarriage of justice. Yes, they DID try to make it a race issue in that case. They obviously were looking for problems between the races in that instance so be careful of your rhetoric as you said "No one "EVER tries to make anything a race issue".  

As far as did Zimmerman "go free"? No, he was taken in the night it happened he just has yet to be charged with the crime. However, due to the ever more emerging media manipulation of both sides of the story, we don't really have any idea what happened. One day you hear Zimmerman had no visible injuries, the next there is footage of alleged lacerations on the back of his head. You heard he called Trayvon a c***, I heard he called him an a**hole which would not be a racial slur. 

You said " If the man was arrested, we would be p**** that this young man was murdered for looking "suspicious", but if Zimmerman were arrested there would not be outrage." Um... what?

In reference to the Black Panther's input, yes it was unsolicited and yes they are entitled to free speech, but it was completely unnecessary. Neither the Black Panthers nor the KKK have any place in modern society as the both promote archaic racist ideals that seek no purposes that would be beneficial to society. 

As for the welfare issue and what not, I have never once on this blog adressed welfare in terms of who  is on it or disparaged people dependent on it. What you did is called arguing beside the point. That's a big no no in the legal world. 

Thank you for praising my blog, but insinuating that I may possibly be "a hate monger and ignorant" is hilarious. I'm not going to take the typical white person cop out of "Hey, I have black friends!" (even though I do. All other colors of the rainbow too.) but your speculation is offensive and in an educated and well though out debate have no place.

Also for the record in reference to your crass metaphor of "don't pea on my boots and tell me its raining", unless you don't want me to assault your shoes with veggies, it is pee*. 

As far as the Spike Lee incident, I would like to amend my previous statement. The director later ended up doing the right and very classy thing which was to not only pay for the alternate accommodations for the elderly couple displaced by his tweet, but also called them to personally apologize.  

Rest assured, I do investigate every side of these stories I post about, but I do find myself leaning to the right nine times out of ten and I do not mind that my posts reflect that. 

Obama Disses the Supreme Court

        
Ummm... yeah.... No comment.

Barack Obama has quite possibly made an enemy of the very court debating the constitutionality of the bill he has been touting as what amounts to the pivotal point of his administration: healthcare reform. During a news conference, he incorrectly stated that were the court to overturn the bill, it would be unprecedented as it was democratically passed by congress. Anyone who has ever heard of the Marbury v Madison case of 1803 would see right through this as this particular case established judicial review for this very reason. The Supreme Court exists as the final appeals court of the United States and therefore a vast majority of its job is to overturn previous rulings, even if they are by congress. This would by no means be the first law ruled unconstitutional by the court.

His second complaint was that overturning the bill would show a lack of restraint by a court not subject to the influence of public opinion as they are appointed to their positions for life. This is a good thing in all honesty. By not having to worry about reelection or losing their position, the justices are not swayed in their decision making by what the public believes or wants from them. But I digress, what is intriguing about this particular complaint is that it is in regards to the same issue that conservatives have been lamenting in light of Supreme Court fairly stacked with liberals. Obama then went on to say that were the court to find the bill unconstitutional, that the burden would be on their shoulders. However during oral arguments last week, Justice Kennedy pointed out that the burden was not on the court, but on the US government to prove the constitutionality of requiring people to have insurance and not merely a government overreach. 

Democrats are now jumping on Kennedy saying that his view of the matter is not broad enough to recognize the scope of the issue. That is neither here nor there as the outcome of this case will likely come down to the rhetoric used by both sides. Democrats are just afraid because the Solicitor General who argued the issue ( the U.S. government's lawyer for all intents and purposes) did an exceptionally poor job of making his case. 

The point I would like to make is that if you are trying to garner the support of a group, do not insult it. Do not describe their use of power that they were given as overreaching. Do not point out that they are unaccountable for their decisions in terms of elections and public opinions and therefore inclined to act more "recklessly". As they are supposed to judge the case on its constitutional merits this shouldn't have an affect on the judgment, but you never know...

I'm Baaaaaackkkkkk

Due to my soaking up all of the social benefits Greek life has to offer over the past couple of days, I haven't had a chance to post. Additionally, I got to meet with some of the great individuals working on the Grant Stinchfield campaign yesterday afternoon and help get his name out there. Truly an amazing opportunity and I cannot wait to really get to work on the campaign. Anyways, a couple of interesting videos have popped up on my radar the last couple of days and I thought I would share. This first video is from the Grant Stinchfield campaign and is not only informative, but quite amusing too:

Moral of the story: Don't mess with someone who investigated people for a living.
The second video was forwarded to me by a good friend and fellow young conservative who unlike me has a TV and is therefore able to better access media stories such as this one.
 
No, your skeezy waiter didn't slip something in your drink at dinner, they said $17 trillion with a tr. That is how much has gone unaccounted for thus far in terms of plans for paying for Obamacare. Be afraid. Be very afraid.