PrairiePundit

 NY Times: Trump Asks Supreme Court to Revive Ban on Transgender Troops Lower courts had blocked the policy, saying it was not supported by evidence and violated equal protection principles. I served as an officer in the Marine Corps in combat in Vietnam.  Those operations are stressful enough on the troops without adding troops who might want to have sex with them or who think that they are something that they are not.

Washington Times: Far more military men are being raped by other men than is reported by the Pentagon because of the stigma attached to such sexual assaults, says a new study by the American Psychological Association. “Rates of military sexual trauma among men who served in the military may be as much as 15 times higher than has been previously reported, largely because of barriers associated with stigma, beliefs in myths about male rape, and feelings of helplessness,” the APA said in releasing its findings Tuesday. The Defense Department issues a biannual report on sexual assaults. Based on Internet emailed surveys it found that more men than women, in pure numbers, are sexually assault victims. Women make up about 14.5 percent of the 1.4 million active force. “We know that there is under reporting among men and women and hope that this special issue will help to bring awareness and treatment for those that serve and protect us,” said the issue’s co-editor, Michi Fu, a clinical prac...

NY Times: Military Men Overlooked in Assault Debate The Pentagon has estimated that 53 percent of military sexual assault cases were attacks on men, mostly by other men. Above, Gregory Helle said he was raped in Vietnam. I also question whether the removal of  "don't ask, don't tell" may have put young homosexuals at risk from some of the old bulls in the military.  It is a problem that has plagued the Navy in the past.  It would be interesting to see a breakdown by service.  I am not aware of such an attack in the Marine Corps coming to my attention while I served.  I suspect it is also a situation that men men would be reluctant to express. No one should be subjected to a sexual assault regardless of orientation or gender.  It is a problem the military needs to deal with in a serious manner.

NY Times: Women in the Senate Confront the Military on Sex Assaults J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press Senator Claire McCaskill said that as a former prosecutor, when she saw how the military was dealing with sexual assault in its ranks, “I realized how out of step they were with the criminal justice system.” The growing presence of women senators is most pronounced on the Armed Services Committee, where they have forced the long-simmering issue of sexual assault in the military to the forefront. Actually more men than women are sexually assaulted in the military .  I suspect that both political and military leaders don't want to discuss that because of the issue of homosexuals openly serving now.  Clearly many of the male victims are homosexuals who are overpowered by other homosexuals.  Regardless of the sexual orientation of the victim or the gender, it is conduct that is intolerable.  We seem willing to have the conversation abou...

Andrew Malcolm: A massive new survey published this morning reveals that only 3.4% of American adults publicly identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, with the highest percentage coming among the younger, less-educated non-whites. The new Gallup Poll of more than 121,000 adults, the largest of its kind on record, wass conducted during the past four months. It finds the percentage of self-reported LGBT Americans to be much smaller than a general impression derived from their presence in popular culture and their perceived influence in liberal American politics. The special report found 3.4% of adult Americans publicly reporting themselves as personally identifying with those categories, 92.2% saying they do not and 4.4% refusing to say or claiming not to know. Given the stigma often attached by some to those categories, some unknown portion of the Didn't Say's and No's presumably are choosing to remain in the closet, holding down the LGBT number some...

Here is another headline from the Washington Post this morning: Obama blasts GOP field on gay rights It is another example of how the President and the Post are trying to change the subject from the failure of liberalism under the Obama administration.   When you put it with the Perry hunting camp non story it tells you where the Post and the democrats want to take this election.

Robert Knight: North Carolina  Gov. Bev Perdue  spoke for many politicians on Tuesday when she suggested suspending congressional elections for two years to give the politicians a free hand without voter input. “You want people who don’t worry about the next election,”  Mrs. Perdue , a Democrat elected in 2008, said to a  Rotary Club  gathering. Although a tape of the speech reveals that she made the statement in a serious manner, she later insisted she had been joking. But the insularity of elected officials is no joke, and Americans who are looking for ways to increase accountability are turning to the right of recall. Arrogant politicians take note: There is more to fear than scheduled elections. Exhibit A is the campaign under way right now in El Paso, Texas. Mayor  John Cook  and two  City Council  members will be on a May 2012 recall election ballot, courtesy of petition collectors from a pro-family group outraged over the ...

Image via Wikipedia Bill Kristol: Now that the lame duck Democratic Congress has repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell ( DADT ), the new Congress will have to see to it that the Obama administration manages the implementation of repeal responsibly, and that the concerns of military leaders and troops are taken seriously. But over the next two years Congress can do something else. It can take an interest in ensuring that discrimination against ROTC on college campuses ends. ... Harvard, Yale and Colombia have run out of excuses for their lack of patriotism in a time of war. Related articles DADT and ROTC (theatlantic.com)

Image via Wikipedia Washington Post: The Marine Corps' top general suggested Tuesday that allowing gays to serve openly in the military could result in more casualties because their presence on the battlefield would pose "a distraction ." "When your life hangs on the line," said Gen. James F. Amos , the commandant of the Marine Corps , "you don't want anything distracting. . . . Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines ' lives." In an interview with newspaper and wire service reporters at the Pentagon , Amos was vague when asked to clarify how the presence of gays would distract or disrupt Marine combat units during a firefight. But he cited a recent Defense Department survey in which a large number of Marine combat veterans predicted that repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" law would harm "unit cohesion" and military effectiveness. "So the Marines came back and they said, 'Look, anyt...

Image via Wikipedia Fox News: The Pentagon is playing down the risk of infantry and other combat arms troops causing problems if "don't ask, don't tell" is overturned. In a first-of-its-kind survey released this week, the Pentagon found that two-thirds of the overall force predicted little impact on the military's ability to fight if gays were allowed to serve openly. But among those who did care, most were troops performing combat arms duties. Nearly 60 percent of those in the Marine Corps and in Army combat units said they thought repealing the law would hurt their units' ability to fight on the battlefield. ... There is more. This is a number that most of the other media has also ignored. It is worth discussing before the policy has changed. Related articles Front-line fighters wary of repealing 'don't ask' (washingtontimes.com) Pentagon Concedes Openly Gay Servicemembers (Still) Won't Hurt Military [Asking And Telling]...

Image via Wikipedia Rowan Scarborough: Pro-military advocates are warning against the dangers of letting federal district court judges start making significant Pentagon policy, saying it would essentially turn the military over to a network of political appointees who could be swayed by various pressure groups. If a district court judge in one unilateral order can strike down a legal ban on open gays in the military , as did federal Judge Virginia A. Phillips , then such judges also could strike down the prohibition on women in land combat, or rules on wearing a uniform, or requirements for grooming, or even the war against al Qaeda . Judge Phillips went beyond ruling the gay ban unconstitutional and letting appeals courts weigh in: She ordered the Pentagon to stop enforcing it — worldwide. "The federal judging is intervening here in a way that I regard as unconstitutional," retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak told The Washington Times. "The Constitution say...

Image via Wikipedia San Francisco Chronicle: A federal appeals court granted the Obama administration's request today to let military authorities resume discharging openly gay and lesbian troops, at least temporarily, while the court considers the government's appeal of a ruling striking down the "don't ask, don't tell" law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a brief order suspending the judge's ruling until at least Monday. The three-judge panel said it would review the case further and decide whether to allow enforcement of the law during the entire appeal process, which could last many months. The court acted hours after Obama administration lawyers filed an emergency motion seeking a stay of the Oct. 12 order by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside that halted all discharges under don't ask, don't tell, a law enacted in 1993. Phillips' order was an "extraordinary and unwarranted intru...

NY Times: A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the United States military to stop enforcing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that prohibits openly gay and bisexual soldiers from military service. Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court for the Central District of California wrote that the 17-year-old policy “infringes the fundamental rights of United States servicemembers and prospective servicemembers” and violates their rights of due process and freedom of speech. She issued an injunction banning enforcement of the law and ordered the military “to suspend and discontinue” immediately any investigations or proceedings to dismiss members of the armed services. While Judge Phillips’s decision is likely to be appealed by the government, it represents a significant new milestone for gay rights in the United States. Two other recent decisions have overturned restrictions on gay rights at the state and federal levels, but Tuesday’s ruling, in Log Cabin Republicans v. Unite...