Sunday, November 17, 2013
CONTACT ME AT: manessmorrison2@yahoo.com


News Clips For The Day


Urban hens often abandoned once they stop laying eggs – NBC

By David Pitt, The Associated Press
A chicken eats from the hands of Susie Coston, Director of Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY, with some of the chickens Tuesday afternoon at the farm.
Five chickens live in artist Alicia Rheal's backyard in Madison, Wis., and when they age out of laying eggs, they may become chicken dinner. 
"We get egg-layers and after a couple of years we put the older girls in the freezer and we get a newer batch," Rheal said. 

Rheal is a pragmatic backyard chicken enthusiast who likes to know what's in her food. But others find the fun of bringing a slice of farm life into the city stops when the hens become infertile. Hesitant to kill, pluck and eat a chicken, some people abandon the animal in a park or rural area. 

As a result, more old hens are showing up at animal shelters, where workers increasingly respond to reports of abandoned poultry. 
"The numbers are exploding. We had hoped that the fad had peaked and maybe we were going to get a little bit of a break here, but we haven't," said Mary Britton Clouse, who operates Chicken Run Rescue in Minneapolis. 

In 2001, she had six calls from people seeking homes for abandoned chickens. That rose to nearly 500 last year, said Clouse, who takes animals from the city's animal control department and works with local humane groups to place unwanted birds. 
As winter approaches the number of abandoned chickens rises, Clouse said: "The summer fun is over."

Wisconsin poultry specialist Ron Kean said. Egg production drops off significantly after that, but the hens can live another decade or more. 
Urban chicken populations have been on the rise since the mid-2000s, championed by people who wanted to know where their eggs came from and whether the animals were free-range and hormone-free. It's unclear how many people have backyard chickens and there's no official count of the number of cities that have approved chicken-friendly ordinances. 

Clouse said the problem worsened around 2007, and her organization and others began pleading with cities to either deny requests to allow backyard chickens or to budget for regulation, inspection of coops, and enforcement of animal cruelty laws. It didn't slow the trend. 

"What you've got are all these people who don't know what the hell they're doing. They're sticking these birds in boxes the size of battery cages in their backyard," said Clouse, who like many opponents of keeping urban chickens advocates a vegan diet. 

Many backyard chicken keepers build or buy elaborate fence-enclosed houses with elevated nesting areas to make the chickens feel safe. Some communities, including Madison, offer tours to show off chic coops. 

Aside from the eventual drying up of egg production, there are a number of headaches that backyard chicken farmers may face. 
Feed, shelter, litter, and veterinary bills add up, and chickens are vulnerable to predators and must be in a secure shelter. Their feed can attract rodents, and chickens can contract parasites requiring veterinary care. 

Plus, there's always the chance that a baby chick turns out to be a rooster. 
Most cities don't allow roosters because their crowing is a nuisance, but determining the sex of a baby chick isn't easy. Kean said about one in 20 chicks turns out to be a rooster, a surprise that he thinks is a bigger problem than the unwanted elderly hens. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it's seeing an increasing number of requests for data and is considering a nationwide survey of cities to see how many permit them. In April, the agency published a report on urban chicken owners in Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York, finding 1.7 percent of Miami residents had their own flocks, followed by 1.2 percent in L.A. and less than 1 percent in the other two metropolitans. 

The survey results mirror what observers anecdotally say occurs in cities that pass local ordinances allowing chickens — small numbers of people actually get birds. Kean said the issue of abandoned chickens, while real, is often overstated by animal rights activists. 

Iowa City officials approved an ordinance in 2012 allowing up to four chickens with a permit and consent from neighbors. A spokeswoman at the city's animal control and adoption center said typically one or two people a month file applications. 
A Minneapolis city spokesman said the city has about 1,500 chickens permitted and gets between six and 10 application requests a week during spring and summer months, fewer when it gets cold. 

For all the naysayers, chicken keepers stand behind their ventures. Rheal said she intends to have the hens hang around far into the future, both for the eggs and the meat. 
But even Rheal has a soft spot for some of her flock, especially Minnie and Scoozie, 7-year-old Bantams. Rheal says those two will be in her yard until they die, describing Scoozie as a sweet chicken who mothers baby chicks. 
"Everyone loves Scoozie. She's just a very gentle bird," Rheal said.


When I was a teenager in Thomasville, NC, which is by no means a large city, there were no restrictions against chickens and my father had a largish garden with a wide variety of vegetables and a fenced chicken house. He was born on a farm, so he was aware of how to raise chickens from special foods they need to ways of eradicating chicken mites. We ate the eggs and then the hens when they quit laying. There was one bantam hen that he kept as a “broody” hen for raising baby chicks. He always had one rooster. That gives fertile eggs for hatching. The bantam, Henrietta, was a pet who liked to be stroked and cuddled.

Chickens come in lots of different colors and sizes, many of which are quite beautiful. Most eggs in the grocery store come from large white or red hens. We had 6 or 8 eggs most days, if no hen decided to “sit” on her eggs. Between the garden and the chickens we did save on grocery store expenses, and had lots of fun at the same time.

We definitely didn't get rid of any of our chickens except for one rooster that was half bantam and half game. That rooster became aggressive and started “defending” his hens against Daddy when he went into the chicken run. Daddy took him to a man he knew in the country who had lots of space for him to roam around. Daddy didn't kill him because he, like Henrietta, was a pet.

I understand the appeal of keeping chickens. They are really interesting animals and give the owner the pleasant feeling that they are in the country, but people who don't commit to the whole responsibility shouldn't take them on. There is an organization called Hens In Jax that is petitioning to legalize chickens here. I hope we don't develop a problem with chickens running around loose in the neighborhood, though. Chickens aren't very “clean” animals, and will eat plants in people's gardens. They need to be enclosed.





Take note: Folk music could track human migrations – NBC
Tia Ghose LiveScience

Pasibutbut: Photograph of Bunun tribe male song,Gufeng Village, Hualien county, Taiwan. Music could be used to track human migration patterns over history, new research suggests. That conclusion, described Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, came from examining a genetic analysis of indigenous populations in Taiwan along with the people's folk music. Populations with more similar folk music also tended to be more closely related, the researchers found.

Scientists propose that the Austronesian-speaking people who populate the Pacific, from Papua New Guinea to the Philippines to Hawaii, originally set sail from Taiwan between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago. To trace this migration, researchers have studied the genetics of pigs, coconuts and head lice, as well as archaeological remains and linguistics. [The 9 Craziest Ocean Voyages]

Though most people in Taiwan today are ethnically Chinese, the island retains a small population of aboriginal people, who are likely descendants of this ancestral Austronesian population. Steven Brown, a neuroscientist at McMaster University in Canada, and his colleagues wondered whether music held clues to human migration.
Originally, they planned to compare musical selections to trace the entire Pacific migration. But with more than 1,200 Austronesian languages to study, they soon realized they were in over their heads.

Instead, the researchers looked at the population makeup of Taiwan. They compiled recordings of 220 folk or traditional choral music songs from nine aboriginal populations that have remained fairly isolated from each other over their history. The researchers also excluded music with any pop elements or Christian influences, as these were likely to be influenced by newer trends.

At the same time, the team analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is carried in the cytoplasm of a woman's egg and is therefore passed on through the maternal line, from 640 people in the aboriginal groups. By comparing elements of the music, such as pitch, texture and rhythm, with the genetic data, the team found that groups with more similar musical styles also tended to be more closely related genetically.

Though using folk music to trace human migrations wouldn't replace genetic or linguistic studies, it could add an additional layer of information, Brown said. Because music is universal but also diverse enough for differences to track with population changes, it could be used to study many different regions of the world.
"We 're trying to add music as a new kind of evidence," Brown said. "The more kinds of things you can include in the story of humanity, the better off you are."
Now Brown and his colleagues are studying music in Japan to see if it can shed light on that island's ancient history.

"This is a landmark study, which has revived some old debates about musical coding and cultural and geographical mapping in the 1970s with fresh perspectives," Shzr Ee Tan, a music researcher at Royal Holloway University of London who studies Taiwanese aboriginal folk songs, wrote in an email. Still, there are some caveats, she said.
"It's becoming increasingly hard to pin down what folk means — the idea that it equates with authentic and untainted is really a romantic and untenable one," Tan told LiveScience.


http://www.ourpacificocean.com/austronesian_people/

“According to mainstream Western studies, a large scale Austronesian expansion began around 5000-2500 B.C. Population growth primarily fuelled this migration. These first settlers may have landed in northern Luzon in the island of the Philippines intermingling with the earlier Austral-Melanesian population who had inhabited the islands about 23,000 years earlier. Over the next thousand years, the Austronesian people migrated south-east to the rest of the Philippine Islands, and into the islands of the Celebes Sea, Borneo, and Indonesia. The Austronesian people of Maritime Southeast Asia sailed eastward, and spread to the islands of Melanesia and Micronesia between 1200 BE.CO., and 500 A.DO. respectively. The Austronesian inhabitants that spread westward through Maritime Southeast Asia had reached some parts of mainland Southeast Asia, and later on to Madagascar.”


http://www.ourpacificocean.com/melanesia_origins/index.htm


Modern evidence, including DNA analysis confirms the opinion that modern man, in the form of Homo sapiens, first came out of Africa as early as 160,000 years ago. Of the pioneers who moved across Asia, one group moved south-east down through the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, crossing over into Australia during a brief window of opportunity 65,000 years ago when water levels dropped. They also reached Papua possibly as early as 65,000 years ago eventually moving from there across the Pacific.


I have always been fascinated by the Australian aborigines because they look so much like African black people, but with differences, and come from southeast Asia. In researching the question of African people in Europe I found an article which stated that all the earliest homo sapiens outside of Africa were black people, including the ones who did the beautiful drawings of mammoths and other animals in the caves of Spain and France. I had never thought of that, but it does make sense. The Melanesian people of the islands in Oceania and Australia were the very first homo sapiens to arrive there. I have seen photographs of a number of them, and they look more like each other from one country to the next than they do like any later peoples anywhere else.

Speaking of music, there is an instrument used by the Australian aborigines that could be one of the earliest blown instruments – the didgeridoo. They also brought a dog with them, the dingo. They make rock art even to this day, going out to the traditional sites and painting over the images to renew them and they have a ceremony out in the field when they kill an animal for food in which they thank the animal for giving its life, showing a respect for other life forms. There was an interesting documentary on television about the modern aborigines there, showing a man working on the drawings and a group in camp talking to the scientists about their beliefs.

They have an interesting custom among the Australians called a “walk about,” in which a man alone goes out into the desert to think, experiencing his spiritual side. Some of the American Indians of the western US states do something similar as a part of becoming a man. Jesus went out into the desert and came to a kind of confrontation with God. Thoreau went out into the woods to live and think. It's a pretty good idea that we could learn from today. It pays to have some quiet time alone, at least; I usually find that very restful.

In 1993 I took an International Folk Music course at George Mason University which looked at least briefly at many countries, with recordings of folk singing and instruments. It is possible to obtain recordings, though they may be expensive, if any reader is interested in comparing the sounds for himself. The web site www.allmusic.com › International › Worldbeat‎ offers recordings from a number of cultures. According to the news article above, there is very little completely unchanged folk music today, but even modified folk music has traditional elements in it and listening to them could be a pleasant learning experience.




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In The Streets Of Iran, A Fashion Shoot Bursting With Color – NPR
FSHN Magazine.
­ Iran is a notoriously closed society, so this was an unusual milestone: It was recently the setting for a high-fashion magazine shoot, published in California-based magazine FSHN.

Iranian-Canadian photographer Afra Pourdad took photos of model Shabnam Molavi posing in public spaces — in bazaars, on the streets. Molavi's head is covered, but she's not wearing abaya, the long, traditional black robe — she's wearing really colorful outfits. She stands out in the crowds.

"I had to explain this all the time to people here, that, you know, it's not like that," Pourdad says of Iran. "It's so much prettier, and it's so colorful. It was just a very personal project for me. That I wanted to have something to show to people."

She didn't get permission from the Iranian government to take the photos — taking photos like this isn't against the law, she says — but she was a little apprehensive at first. And it may have been the first such fashion shoot in Iran for an international magazine since Vogue in 1969.

"When I walked into bazaar, I was very conscious about what I'm doing and where I'm doing it," she says. "But then after a few minutes, I felt like: I'm doing this and this is the opportunity, so I can't really be too scared or be fearful of what I want to do."

For one of the shoots, Pourdad put the model right in the middle of an alley in a bazaar. At one point, an old man with a cart of tomatoes walked by, and looked right into the camera. She shot the photo.

"As he came closer to me, he said, 'Oh, you took a picture of me! I want you to take another picture!' And then he went back and stood right beside her, and the model was laughing, and I was laughing."

After that, Pourdad says she realized that she could communicate with people passing by. "The response that I got from them was amazing. I mean, I didn't have anybody who says no to it."

More of Pourdad's photos from Iran can be found on her website, AfrasCorner.com.


This doesn't seem too anti-American to me. Could the people of Iran be more friendly than the government? Of course Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran seems much more amenable than Ahmadinejad, but one article by Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg View warns against trusting him, stating that he recently spoke against the US and hasn't really changed, but is simply using charm as a weapon. Goldberg also said that “nothing works in the Middle East,” that the old hard lines continue in place in spite of efforts to dislodge them. He is probably right, if the relationship between Israel and Palestine is an example. Culture is slow to change, even in the US south, and old prejudices die hard. Even where there is rethinking going on, it rarely touches all elements of society.



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In France, Some Ask If Racism Is On The Rise – NPR
by Eleanor Beardsley
­ For the past week or so, France has been deep in debate, wondering if there's a resurgence of an old colonial racism, or if people have just become more tolerant of bigots. The questions stem from a series of race-based taunts against Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, who is black. Many of the statements seem to stem from Taubira's championing of the country's gay marriage legalization, which was signed into law in May.

But things took a nasty turn about a month ago: A politician from the far-right National Front party posted a photo of Taubira next to a monkey on a Facebook page.
Then a group gathered to protest the gay marriage law was caught yelling, "Monkey, go eat your banana!" The video circulated widely on YouTube.

"The issue is not about the small minority of people who are deeply racist in France," says Louis-Georges Tin, head of an umbrella group of French black associations. "The issue is about the majority. Is the majority indifferent to this situation? Or is the majority against racism?"

Some blame the racist outbreak on a resurgence of the far right. Others say years of hostile, anti-immigrant talk from former President Nicolas Sarkozy has made people numb to it all.

A recent survey showed the number of French who consider themselves not at all racist (44 percent) is lower than ever. Many say it's the government's fault for not defending Taubira more forcefully.

"When you see kids waving bananas and such racist acts multiplying, it's unbelievable," says Harlem Desir, general secretary of the ruling Socialist Party. "I haven't seen anything like this in 30 years. This is not France. We have to stand up to racism like this."

The Nov. 13 issue of the French far-right weekly magazine Minute, with a picture of Justice Minister Christiane Taubira. Translated, the headline reads: "Clever As A Monkey."

The Nov. 13 issue of the French far-right weekly magazine Minute, with a picture of Justice Minister Christiane Taubira. Translated, the headline reads: "Clever As A Monkey."

A third incident this week forced the government to act. A far-right magazine published a picture of Taubira on its cover with a headline "Clever as a Monkey," and a play on the word banana. The government is bringing a lawsuit against the paper, as are several anti-racism groups.

"These violent comments don't just come from anywhere; they emanate from a nation that has always stood up for human rights, equality and a common destiny for its citizens," Taubira said on the nightly news. "That's why I'm so stunned."
Taubira says she knows these are not the true voices of France; others say they're not so sure.

Harry Roselmack, who became the first black anchor of a major network in France in 2006, wrote in an editorial in Le Monde of the huge gap between what the French republic promises, and what French society delivers.


According to this article, Roselmack who is the first black news anchor of a major network was only hired in 2006. Maybe the culture of France has been consistently racist to a certain degree up to now. It's like the black lead actors and actresses in the US. We have them, but not many of them.

Some things tend to come in waves. When I took a course in college called Modern Civilization it talked about cultural trends and changes over the history of Europe. Europe went through turnabouts in things like racial and political attitudes every few decades, with the newest trend often opposite in nature, and rising up in reaction against the previous. Some elements are never really wiped out, thus cleansing society of its evils. They are harbored by mean-spirited and closed-minded people (who may otherwise be good citizens), and they live on like fungus spores in the leaf-mold of a forest. When the weather is dry there are no mushrooms, but when it rains they pop up everywhere.

Race is an obvious and very visible physical characteristic and as people lean toward so-called “conservative” thinking they tend to have less tolerance for differences. When the economy is under threat, people seem to get more “conservative” (fearful of “the other” and of change). It may be a passing phase in France. The author of this article questioned whether the majority of the population of France is racist, though. I do hope not, because they have generally had a liberal tradition. In this country, I think racial hatred is now mainly in a minority, though the average American may have simply accepted social change rather than embracing it. Still, there are fewer of the strongly abusive incidents than when I was young in the 1940's to 1960's, at least as reported in the news papers. I think we have made progress.










Under Suspicion At The Mall Of America – NPR
­ by G.W. Schulz, Daniel Zwerdling, Andrew Becker and Margot Williams
­ September 07, 2011
Since Sept. 11, the nation's leaders have warned that government can't protect the country on its own — private businesses and civilians have to do their part, too. Now NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting have found that, at least in one community, these kinds of programs are entangling ordinary people with the police and FBI.
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Mall of America officials say that thousands of mall visitors have been stopped and questioned in recent years. The interviews at the mall are part of a counterterrorism initiative that acts as the private eyes and ears of law enforcement authorities but has often ensnared innocent people, according to an investigation by NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The written reports were often filed without the knowledge of those interviewed by security. Several people named in the reports only learned from journalists that their birth dates, race, names of employers and other personal information were compiled along with surveillance images.
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The guards at the privately owned mall conduct up to 1,200 security interviews of shoppers on average each year, mall officials said. One Iranian man became disoriented during questioning. An Army veteran sobbed in his car after he was questioned about video he had taken inside the mall.

Much of the questioning at the mall has been done in public while shoppers mill around, records show. People also described instances in which subjects were taken to a basement area. Officials at the mall would not address individual cases.

"The government is not going to protect us free of charge, so we have to do that ourselves," said Maureen Bausch, executive vice president of business development at the mall. "We're lucky enough to be in the city of Bloomington where they actually have a police substation here. ... They're great. But we are responsible for this building."

Reporters at NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting gained access to more than 1,000 pages contained in 125 reports that refer to the mall dating to Christmas Eve 2005. The documents provide a glimpse inside the national campaign by authorities to collect and share intelligence about possible threats.

The initiative exemplifies one of the cultural legacies of the terrorist attacks 10 years ago: Organizations and individuals are now encouraged by U.S. leaders to watch one another and report any signs of threats to homeland security authorities.

This story was reported by NPR Correspondents Daniel Zwerdling and Margot Williams, and G.W. Schulz and Andrew Becker from The Center for Investigative Reporting.
There is no way to know for sure exactly how many suspicious activity reports from the Mall of America may have ended up with local, state and federal authorities. The Bloomington Police Department and Minnesota's state fusion center turned over a portion of the paperwork in response to open-government requests.

In 2008, the mall's security director, Douglas Reynolds, told Congress that the mall was the "No. 1 source of actionable intelligence" provided to the state's fusion center, an intelligence hub created after Sept. 11 to pull together reports from an array of law enforcement sources.

Information from these suspicious activity reports generated at the mall has been shared with Bloomington police, the FBI and, in at least four cases, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Missed Signals Prompt Heightened Awareness
The push to encourage Americans to report suspicious activity began in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when government officials and citizens found out that there were hints about the attackers' intentions.

Some of the terrorists had taken flight training in Florida — but didn't focus on how to land. They bought one-way tickets. Officials at the FBI and other agencies failed to act on — or share — tips they had received.

In the decade since, the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have launched programs urging citizens to report suspicious activity. The private sector, including the utility industry and other businesses concerned with protecting "critical infrastructure," have their own surveillance and reporting systems. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has made such reporting a priority.

Last year the Department of Homeland Security launched a promotional campaign, "If You See Something, Say Something," encouraging Americans to report anything perceived as threatening.

Among those formally enlisted were parking attendants, Jewish groups, stadium operators, landlords, security guards, fans of professional golf and auto racing and retailers such as the Mall of America. Visitors "may be subject to a security interview," the mall's website says.

Mall Reports Detail Personal Information
The suspicious activity reports from the mall are rich with detail. They contain personal information, sometimes with Social Security numbers and the names of family members and friends. Some of the reports include shoppers' travel plans.
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Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, said the risk of abuses is high, particularly if there turns out to be a lack of proven results.
"If all they're getting for amassing suspicious activity reports on innocent people in government databases is the arrest of a few low-level turnstile jumpers and shoplifters, that doesn't seem very sensible," Rosen said.

Shoppers, who for the most part had no idea that a visit to the mall led to their personal information's being shared with law enforcement, reacted with anger and dismay when shown their reports.

"For all the 30 years that I have lived in the United States, I've never been a suspect," said Emil Khalil, a California man whose suspicious activity report was sent to the FBI after he was questioned in June 2009 for taking pictures at the mall. "And I've never done anything wrong."
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Rozin's team looks for unexplained nervousness, people photographing such things as air-conditioning ducts, or signs that a shopper might have something to hide, according to records.

Earlier this year, Rozin's guards detected a suspicious man who tried to run when guards approached. Bloomington police joined in pursuit. After he was stopped, they found a loaded handgun. The man had a history of violence.

Rozin acknowledged that the vast majority of people who come into contact with his unit "have done nothing wrong, have no malicious intent. They just act in a suspicious manner that obligated me to investigate further," Rozin said. "We talked to them for an average of five minutes, and they're able to continue their shopping."


I think having security guards at malls to check people out when they are behaving suspiciously is good, because they may catch would be robbers or deranged gun-toting citizens. I don't think more than a very small percentage of those people investigated need to be reported to the FBI. We have overdone the fear of conspirators since 9/11, and FBI files must be piled full of extraneous information which proves nothing. I especially wouldn't be looking for international bombers at a shopping mall – though there was some talk several years ago about “soft targets” needing surveillance. Still, no bombings have occurred at malls in the US.

To catch criminals I would look more at Internet research traffic on political extremist sites, telephone calls or visits to known suspicious characters, keeping track of extremist teachers at mosques, etc. Several CIA and FBI undercover operations have caught conspirators by pretending to help them. Setting up operations in a shopping mall, where most people are there simply to enjoy themselves, is much too diffuse an atmosphere to be effective at catching bad guys. It's an intrusion and a waste of money.



Senate showdown over military sexual assault bill – CBS

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., (2nd L) speaks as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, (R) and military sexual assault victim Ariana Klay (L), a former Marine officer, listen during a news conference November 6, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC

WASHINGTON A female Democratic senator has secured public support from nearly half the Senate, but not enough votes, for her proposal to give victims of rape and sexual assault in the military an independent route outside the chain of command for prosecuting attackers.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's solution for a problem the military calls an epidemic appears to have stalled in the face of united opposition from the Pentagon's top echelon and its allies in Congress, including two female senators who are former prosecutors.

Opponents of the proposal by Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, insist that commanders, not an outside military lawyer, must be accountable for meting out justice.
Even so, major changes are coming for a decades-old military system just a few months after several high-profile cases infuriated Republicans and Democrats alike in a rapid chain of events by Washington standards.

"Sexual assault in the military is not new, but it has been allowed to fester," Gillibrand said in a recent Senate speech.

The Senate this week is set to consider an annual defense policy bill that would strip commanders of their ability to overturn jury convictions, require dishonorable discharge or dismissal for any individual convicted of sexual assault and establish a civilian review when a decision is made not to prosecute a case. The bill would provide a special counsel for victims and eliminate the statute of limitations.

Those changes in military law are backed by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But overshadowing the revisions is the testy, intense fight over Gillibrand's proposal to strip commanders of their authority to prosecute cases of sexual assault. She wants to hand responsibility to seasoned military lawyers outside the chain of command.

Despite the competing plans and the opposition from much of the military brass, Gillibrand argued on ABC that "having the bright line of elevating all serious crimes out of the chain of command" will ensure the protection of both victims' rights and defendants' rights.

"What we have is a system where the command climate is so broken that if you are raped, you are likely going to be retaliated against for reporting that rape," she said. "The military has said for 25 years, since Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, that there is zero tolerance for sexual assult in the military, and last year alone we had 3000 cases of sexual assault." She noted that, of those 3,000 incidents, 70 percent were violent rapes, and 62 percent of victims reported retaliation.

Among Gillibrand's 47 announced supporters are conservative Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with 16 of the Senate's 20 women.
Standing against the plan is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan; the panel's military veterans Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and three of the committee's women - Sens. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, and Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, both former prosecutors, and Sen. Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican.

Gillibrand says she privately has received backing from more than 50 senators, but support remains short of the 60 votes that likely will be needed to overcome procedural hurdles for a vote on her amendment to the defense bill. To secure more votes, she said last week she was considering scaling back her plan to focus solely on sexual assault and rape instead of all serious crimes. That prompted complaints from her original backers that it would create "pink courts," and Gillibrand said on ABC Sunday she was reverting to her initial bill.

McCaskill said the Pentagon already has moved unilaterally, reflected in the recent word from the Defense Department that reports of sexual assaults in the military increased by an unprecedented 46 percent during the last budget year. There were 3,553 sexual assault complaints from October 2012 through June, compared with 2,434 reports during the same period the previous year.

Defense Department officials cast the sharp increase as a sign that people are more confident about coming forward now that improvements are being made in handling assaults. Gillibrand offers a different figure - 26,000. That was the Pentagon's estimate of the number of military members who may have been sexually assaulted last year, based on an anonymous survey of military personnel. Thousands of victims were unwilling to come forward despite new oversight and assistance programs aimed at curbing the crimes, according to the Pentagon report earlier this year.

"They didn't trust the chain of command. They didn't think anything would be done in their cases," Gillibrand said in an interview. "The second reason they didn't report was because they feared or had witnessed retaliation. ... The command climate failed those victims."

President Obama has called for an overhaul of the military's approach to accusations of sexual assault, but he has not publicly signaled his support for either Gillibrand's or McCaskill's proposal. Asked on ABC whether the president supports her measure, Gillibrand said, "I am so hopeful that he will, because this is an opportunity for him to show extraordinary leadership on this issue."

Pushing back against Gillibrand's proposal, Gen. Ray Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, said last week that adopting her plan would be a "big mistake" and that it would cost an estimated $113 million a year, including salaries for about 600 attorneys and support staff.

That financial assessment doesn't take into account the expense of training members of the military, medical and mental health benefits for victims, loss of productivity and possible separation from service for a Pentagon with a fiscal year budget of more than $500 billion.

"It would seem absurd for the military to say we can't possibly prevent sexual assault, rape, because we don't have lawyers to try the cases," Gillibrand said.
Bolstering their case, McCaskill, Ayotte and Fisher compiled additional changes that the Senate is expected to approve. They include barring defendants from using the good military character defense, allowing sexual assault victims to challenge a discharge or separation from the service, and extending the new protections to the military service academies.

"The reason this issue is so hard is because on one side is a very simple narrative, this is victim versus commanders and you should be for the victims," McCaskill said.
"On the other side, it's much more complex, and I'm guided by practical experience handling these cases and a pretty intimate knowledge of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and how it actually works ... and making sure we have a system that's constitutional, that works and that holds commanders accountable."


I first heard of these problems three or four years ago on the Diane Rehm Show when she had a woman on who had been raped while in the military by a superior officer and was punished when she reported it up the chain of command. She talked about the prevalence of rape in the military and the lack of justice for the victim. Commanders have had the option in the past to make their own decisions about whether to prosecute the crime, and have protected rapists in too many cases. It isn't new, and it isn't uncommon.

I'm glad to see that Gillibrand is pushing for this, and I hope she gets the changes through. I think it has to be made public knowledge for anything to be done. It's like the sexual assault of altar boys by the Catholic priests. For centuries it has been going on, and only recently have enough of the public and the loyal Catholics known about it to make a change. The situation is the same – a rigid power structure is protecting its members rather than the victims. In the church's case it was covered up partly to avoid scandal, and maybe that thinking is part of the situation in the military, too. I'll try to follow this situation when it reappears in the news as Congress and the Senate act.