When the prosecution rate for sexual assaults in the military is less than 1 percent, and the conviction rate is less than .1 percent, we have a problem. It becomes a bigger problem when our legislators set out to do something about it and their colleagues quash the effort.

In a striking showdown between Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and a member of his own party, Mr. Levin said on Tuesday that he would remove a measure aimed at curbing sexual assault in the military from a defense spending bill.

Senator Carl Levin supported military brass in deciding to drop a proposal by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, another Democrat.

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, offered a measure that would give military prosecutors rather than commanders the power to decide which sexual assault crimes to try, with the goal of increasing the number of people who report crimes without fear of retaliation. Mr. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said he would replace Ms. Gillibrand’s measure — which has 27 co-sponsors, including four Republicans — with one that would require a senior military officer to review decisions by commanders who decline to prosecute sexual assault cases. Although Mr. Levin’s measure would change the current system, it would keep prosecution of sexual assault cases within the chain of command, as the military wants.

I think we have a man problem in the Senate, too. This is the second time Senator Gillibrand has gotten the smackdown from her own party. It's not like she was asking for anything radical, and it had bipartisan support.

“They basically embrace the status quo here,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, a co-sponsor of Ms. Gillibrand’s bill. “It’s outrageous.”

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For people from foreign states who need to catch up – Rosemary Lehmberg is the Travis County DA. In Travis County (county seat: Austin), the district attorney is charged with investigating and prosecuting public corruption cases all over Texas. Lehmberg is a Democrat.

She got caught drunk driving. She admitted her guilt and took the stiffest punishment – she went to jail.

Now Rick Perry wants her to resign. But not because of her having a drunk driving conviction. He wants her to resign because he would get to appoint the new district attorney.

And he would appoint one of his Republican good ole boys. Democrats all over Texas will be found guilty of felony littering. And Tom DeLay would get his conviction dismissed.

Lehmberg is refusing to step down and Perry can’t force her to do it.So, he’s doing what Perry does best. He’s being a bully.

Gov. Rick Perry is vowing to veto funding for the state’s Austin-based ethics-enforcement unit unless Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigns, officials confirmed Monday.

Perry has until Sunday to veto bills passed by the Legislature during its regular session that ended in May, including the state budget that contains about $7.5 million to fund the Public Integrity Unit for the next two years.

He’s threatening to take away funding for public integrity in Texas unless this woman does his bidding and turns her office over to him – Rick Perry.

It is interesting to me that every political prognosticator in Texas is pretty darn certain that every Republican statewide candidate in Texas in 2014 will be a male. It’s like a testosterone summer camp. They won’t have even one woman on the GOP statewide ticket.

Don’t get me wrong. I am no fan of drunk driving. But, I hope District Attorney Lehmberg stands up to Rick Perry and calls his bluff. I mean, after all, how’s it gonna look when he runs for President again and we can tell everyone that he defunded public integrity in Texas?

Why? Because he said this -- on a Spanish speaking media outlet, no less.

“Let’s be clear,” Rubio said. “Nobody is talking about preventing the legalization. The legalization is going to happen. That means the following will happen: First comes the legalization. Then come the measures to secure the border. And then comes the process of permanent residence.”

OMG SHAMNESTY!

Predictably, the Teamams went ballistic.

Kind of sad watching Rubio implode on amnesty, he had so much potential.

And,

Just say ‘no’ to Rubio.

The Anchor Baby:

...lying liar Rubio finally telling the full truth on Univision: It’s legalization first.

The most over the top response?

And then comes the death of the nation.

Such drama queens.

Anyway, the closest Marco Rubio will get to the White House now is if he can score an invite to Hillary's post-inaugural party. Wingnuts have long memories.

It should be self-evident that recent NSA revelations bring up some grave concerns about civil liberties. But they also raise other profound and troubling questions - about the privatization of our military, our culture's inflated expectations for digital technology, and the increasingly cozy relationship between Big Corporations (including Wall Street) and Big Defense.

Are these corporations perverting our political process? The campaign war chest for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who today said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden committed "treason," is heavily subsidized by defense and intelligence contractors that include General Dynamics, General Atomic, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Bechtel.

One might argue that a politician with that kind of backing is in no moral position to lecture others about "treason."

But Feinstein's funders are decidedly old-school Military/Industrial Complex types. What about the new crowd? This confluence of forces hasn't been named yet, so for the time being we'll use a cumbersome label: the "Security/Digital Complex."

With computers and communications encompassing an ever-larger portion of human activity, we may someday learn that this new force dwarfs even its predecessors in the Feinstein camp when it comes to its impact on our democracy, our economy and our values.

There's much we don't know yet, so it's wise to be cautious in describing this new force. But Edward Snowden's revelations, and the reactions to them, are offering us a glimpse into rarely-seen intersections of Wall Street wealth, information technology, and the national security state.

Revolving doors

Reports say that Snowden left government and joined the private sector as part of the massive privatization of government functions, including national security. His recent employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, earns more than 98 percent of its revenue from the government.

Privatization is an ideological pathway. It's also, as with bank regulation, a path to riches for pliant officials. And, as with Wall Street, the officials feeding at the trough are entirely "bipartisan." From a New York Times article:

"As evidence of the company's close relationship with government, the Obama administration's chief intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., is a former Booz Allen executive. The official who held that post in the Bush administration, John M. McConnell, now works for Booz Allen."

That's the revolving door in its purest form, spinning like an electron in your digital profile.

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The Moderate Voice: A leaker wanted us to know that U.S. intelligence operatives were inspired to hack Al Qaeda’s online magazine.

Jim Romenesko: Charlotte Observer religion reporter arrested while covering protests at the North Carolina General Assembly.

Charles Pierce: Apparently, Scott Brown believes he could be Governor of Massachusetts or Senator from New Hampshire or…wait for it…President of the United States.

RH Reality Check: Draconian abortion laws leading to arrests and detention of pregnant women as Wisconsin considers TRAP law.

Speaking of which, your quote of the day: “Half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery." (Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, sponsor of House bill which would criminalize abortion services after 20 weeks of pregnancy, February 26, 2010.)

Guest blogging Mike's Blog Round Up this week is Jon Perr from Perrspectives. Send your tips, recommendations, comments and angst to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

h/t Heather. Open Thread below...

There was another mass shooting here in California last Friday, right in Santa Monica close to where good friends live. It's also close to where Lawrence O'Donnell lives. Did you hear about it?

It didn't seem to splash onto the national radar the way one might expect, given that the deranged young man armed with 1300 rounds of ammunition, an assault-style rifle, and other weapons went to a community college instead of an elementary school. After reporting on Newtown, I guess the national media decided they'd had enough, even though the shooting happened within a few miles of a fundraiser with President Obama in attendance.

Or maybe it's just not newsworthy. After all, college students and older people caught in the crossfire unleashed by a determined, violent young man just doesn't play the same as another angry young man gunning down six-year olds, right?

The suspect, 23-year-old John Zawahri, was known as an angry young man with a “fascination with guns” that worried family friends. Zawahri was born in Lebanon but has lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years. In a press conference on Sunday, police said the troubled young man had planned out the attack and likely hoped to kill hundreds. The spree lasted 10 minutes, ending when police shot and killed Zawahri on the scene.

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The smear campaign is in high gear against NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and it's coming from all sides of the spectrum. Jeffrey Toobin is on a one man show to discredit him with his appearances on CNN and his piece in the New Yorker entitled: Edward Snowden Is No Hero. He's trying to make the case that Snowden had other avenues to express his displeasure with the system which is pretty preposterous. I've liked some of Toobin's work a lot over the years, but this take is just very naive on his part.

David Brooks writes another pompous article which superimposes his own problems with society onto Snowden so he can psychoanalyze him for his rubes.

Sen. Feinstein brings terror into the mix.

On FOX News with Bret Baier, his All-Star panel kept up the crazy talk with wingnuts like Charles Krauthammer and Jason Riley of the WSJ. Charles makes the case that the police do bad things all the time too, but we still need them, However, Jason Riley went off the deep end with his commentary.

Kudos to Bret Baier, who did a very good job pointing out the issues to Riley, who couldn't care less.

Riley: Until we see an abuse of the information I'm not particularly concerned. (So he wants to take care of the problem after it erupts.)

Baier: ...but Jason, how would we even know? We didn't even know about the program until this guy leaked it.

Riley: How would we know if they're abuses?

Baier: Abuse, yea.

Riley: Well, I guess a whistle blower would come forward and that would be a true whistle blower who pinpointed out such abuses but again this...

Baier: You don't see him as a whistle blower?

Riley: No, not in that sense at all. I see this as a very dangerous man that I hope will be prosecuted, found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Krauthammer: Until the program has been around for about a decade and we do not have a single case of anybody saying 'my email was abused , but do you think after a decade if there were abuse you wouldn't have had a lawsuit, somebody who would go to the p. Until you show me a single case of course there's a potential for for abuse, but show me abuse and I'll get very worried about it

.

Charles, how would anyone know anything or any abuse was going on since we had no idea they were collecting billions of records a day? And because of Edward Snowden we now know what the government is doing. Even Glenn Greenwald is fine about it if America decides this is in our best interests to do, but the idea that they are doing it on the sneak is the BIG problem.

Jason Riley is a clown. he doesn't consider Snowden a whistle blower yet believes that if anyone at the government level abuses the NSA system then magically a new whistle blower will pop up to end the abuse. What a sap. And exactly why is Snowden a dangerous man? Because he's blowing the whistle on a secret government monitoring program and these yokels are defending those responsible like sheep.

And so the smear campaign continues. Soon he won't be a US citizen, but a communist, Chinese spy.

Well, this is chivalrous! Days after Krystal Ball gave birth to her second child, a nasty piece of work called a GOP strategist took to his column to call on Social Services to take away her 5-year old daughter, Ella. Why? Because Ball had the temerity to explain that marriage isn't always between a man and a woman. Right Wing Watch:

GOP strategist Raynard Jackson has a new anti-gay column in Charisma today that calls on social services to take MSNBC host Krystal Ball’s daughter away from her for “indoctrinat[ing] her daughter about homosexual marriage.”

“Social services should remove Ella from this house because her mother is without question an unfit parent,” Jackson writes. “What Ball did to her daughter may not be child abuse legally, but morally it is definitely abuse, and I am amazed that even liberals of goodwill have not criticized her for such abuse.”

What terrible thing could Krystal Ball have done? That video at the top, where she talks to her daughter about marriage and that it's not always one mommy and one daddy, but sometimes two mommies or two daddies. Mind you, this happened in April. Back then the winger blogs along with Breitbart and others tried to make a big splash out of it, and then it died out.

But one scumbag strategist thought it would be really cute to wait until she couldn't speak out in her own defense and went on the attack.

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Mark Fuhrman should be in jail somewhere, but instead he's the go-to guy for Fox News when it comes to criminal trials. Not just any criminal trial, either. No, former Detective Mark Fuhrman is the guy Fox News is using for commentary on the high-profile George Zimmerman trial. Zimmerman, you may recall, is on trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin, after a firestorm of protest was unleashed at law enforcement's initial refusal to prosecute Zimmerman due to Florida's ALEC-authored "Stand Your Ground" law.

For those of you reading this who are younger than age 30 or so, Mark Fuhrman was the policeman who blew up the OJ Simpson criminal trial because of his deep, ingrained hatred of black people.

Media Matters:

During the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, the defense produced a tape of Fuhrman, who collected evidence in the case, using the word n*****more than 40 times over a 10 year period. The person who made the tape said Fuhrman used the slur "in a very casual ordinary pattern of speech. It was nothing extraordinary. It was just conversation." During the O.J. Simpson trial, a number of other witnesses testified that Fuhrman was a racist. Fuhrman, who testified during the trial that he had not used a racial slur in the past 10 years, pled no contest to perjury charges and was sentenced to three years of probation.

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