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I've just gone along with the flow of people liking Kathleen Sebelius. I can't say I was impressed with her endorsement of Obama. But on the whole, I thought she was OK. This story, however has me reeling back more than a little. Her son is selling an extremely tasteless board game called "Don't Drop the Soap" out of the Governor's Mansion (which I didn't think was even legal). The Kansas City Pitch describes it much better than I could. The Idiot Son: A Board Game Published: February 7, 2008 The son of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has made up...

Chicago (AP) -- The son of an Illinois congressman is accused of having sexual contact with two female inmates and inappropriate contact with a third while working for the state Department of Corrections, officials announced Friday. Jeffrey M. Rush, 41, the son of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, was a supervisor of security at the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in Aurora, a facility which houses female offenders. Between February and June, Rush met two inmates for sexual contact on numerous occasions and offered a third inmate a ride, according to the Kane County state's attorney's office. Rush drove a state-issued...

HOBBS, N.M. -- Some prisoners in the Lea County jail started fires and broke toilets and windows after they were told they would be allowed only one sausage each for dinner. Warden Jann Gartman said 33 prisoners were involved in the melee Tuesday evening. Officers from the Lea County Sheriff's and Hobbs police departments were called to the jail to restore control. The jail was locked down after the incident. Gartman said damage to the jail was light. Charges against the rebellious prisoners were pending Thursday morning. The other 300 prisoners accepted the meal without incident.

<p>BREAKING: O'Reilly had Catherine Heridge (sp?) on describing the case.</p> <p>ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A youth sports coach in Arlington County who is also a past president of Virginia's American Civil Liberties Union chapter was arrested Friday and charged with receiving and possessing child pornography.</p>

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Women inmates in New Jersey's prisons are twice as likely to be raped and nearly six times more likely to be otherwise sexually abused by other inmates than their male counterparts, according to a new federal study. The study, published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of The New York Academy of Medicine, reports that about one in five female inmates said they've been either raped or abused while in prison. It also found that New Jersey's male inmates were more likely to be sexually abused by prison staff than...

The American Spectator March 2006 SECTION: The railroading of a former U.S. ally. LENGTH: 1511 words HEADLINE: America, The Hague, and Ante Gotovina BYLINE: Robin Harris BODY: GREAT POWERS LIKE AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD to be too sentimental about foreign friends whose purpose has been served. But sometimes it pays to keep faith with individuals who collaborate successfully in one's policy goals. This is particularly so when those concerned know the inside story of U.S. covert activity and when their fate sets a precedent that jeopardizes U.S. personnel. Such is the case of the former Croatian General Ante Gotovina, arrested in...

When Congress issued the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, that should have put corrections officials on notice. The measure requires the Justice Department to study the endemic problem of sexual assault behind bars and develop a strategy for coping with it. But prison officials have continued to play down this problem... Speaking of prison officials, a witness said, "They seen what was happening but they pretended they didn't." In what may be the first case of its kind, Mr. Johnson sued prison officials and accused them of violating his rights under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19 - T. J. Parsell was a lanky pimple-faced adolescent bent on mischief. So when he found a toy gun one evening in 1978 while wandering home from a high school party, he thought nothing of pointing it at a store clerk and grumbling, "Your money or your life." He got $50 for what he now calls "a stupid impulsive prank." The incident landed the 17-year-old Parsell in an adult jail, where on his first night, an older inmate spiked his drink with Thorazine and sexually abused and raped him. "While my friends prepared for our high...

If you’re an Arab terrorist, the New York Times is willing to lie about the Geneva Conventions, in order to aid and abet you. But if you’re a white American prisoner, as far as Times publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr. and his lackeys are concerned, no punishment is too grisly to be meted out to you. The November 14 Times ran a house editorial, “Racial Segregation in Prison”, opposing a California prison policy being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court, that for many white prisoners, has been the difference between life and death. California prison officials have in recent years...

If you're an Arab terrorist, the New York Times is willing to lie about the Geneva Conventions, in order to aid and bet you. But if you're a white American prisoner, as far as Times publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. and his lackeys are concerned, no punishment is too grisly to be meted out to you. California prison officials have in recent years been guilty of showing mercy to white prisoners, and the Times will not stand for that. The California Department of Corrections racially segregates new prisoners with members of their own race for 60 days after their arrival...

Donald Rumsfeld was, fielding unfriendly fire on Tuesday over the military's torture of Iraqi prisoners. This time, his usual pose of barely concealed contempt seemed more like scarcely repressed rage. Every muscle in his body was tensed, and his shoulders looked like wire hangers were holding them up. It was Rummy's Strangelove-ian attempt to keep from shrugging. Hey, the voice within him longed to say, those fuckers are lucky to have their fingernails. But Rummy is a master of extenuation. When Baghdad was looted while the U.S. army stood by, he uttered his most famous euphemism: "Stuff happens." Now he...

I get this a lot: Mark, how can you write about light fluffy inconsequential things like dogs or yoga or car design or sex or music when there's so many vile gut-wrenching soul-curdling life-threatening atrocities and gang rapes and beheadings and Rumsfelds happening in the world right now that deserve immediate attention? How the hell can you possibly write a whole column extolling, say, the virtues of single-malt scotch or of having sex in the backseat of small luscious European cars, when BushCo is right this moment ravaging the planet and eviscerating the human spirit and the environment is teetering...

After about two decades as a foreign correspondent, I returned to the United States to find my country in a war I had barely heard of before. A lot of young people were dying by swallowing poison pills or injecting the poison into their veins. Americans took to calling it the war on drugs. Thousands had died by then, and before long thousands more would be killed because of organized gangs that were operating all over the world and harvesting billions of dollars. They still are killing, often gang against gang, but with far more powerful weapons than they had...

The entire nation owes radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh a debt of gratitude, Libertarians say, because his ordeal has exposed every drug warrior in America as a rank hypocrite. "One thing we don't hear from American politicians very often is silence," said Joe Seehusen, Libertarian Party executive director. "By refusing to criticize Rush Limbaugh, every drug warrior has just been exposed as a shameless, despicable hypocrite. "And that's good news, because the next time they do speak up, there'll be no reason for anyone to listen." The revelation that Limbaugh had become addicted to painkillers -- drugs he is accused of...

Yesterday, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer called on Arnold Schwarzenegger to volunteer to be investigated over the accusations that he harassed 15 women over the last 20 years: (Attorney General wants Schwarzenegger investigated) In June 2001, AG Lockyer was quoted as saying "I would love to personally escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey.'". Many observers, including Townhall's Steve Chapman (The Hidden, Accepted Horror of our Prisons, June 7, 2001), have correctly interpreted this statement as an official sanction of prison rape by the State...

Imagine the following defense argument being put forth to a judge who's about to sentence a defendant—an attractive long-haired young man of small but athletic build and gentle demeanor—after he has been convicted of molesting a teenage victim: Your Honor, it is unfair and disproportionate to sentence my client to jail, since it will almost certainly subject him to violent and probably sexual assault while incarcerated. As the evidence we will proffer shows, there is a 50 percent chance he will suffer an aggravated assault and at least a 40 percent likelihood he will be raped and sodomized on multiple...

Today: September 24, 2003 at 14:33:50 PDT Guards in Court Over Calif. Prison Rape By BRIAN SKOLOFFASSOCIATED PRESS FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - In a lawsuit set to go to trial Wednesday, an inmate claims prison guards punished him by setting up his rape by a convicted murderer who was so notorious for abuse that he was known as the "Booty Bandit." Scheduled witnesses at the federal trial include Wayne Robertson, who has acknowledged raping and torturing Eddie Webb Dillard and said the guards intentionally put Dillard in his cell. "They knew what would happen to him," Robertson said at a...

<p>A bright light is about to be shone on an almost unseen social problem: prison rape. On Sept. 4, President Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which provides for an annual Department of Justice review on the rate and effects of prison rape. Why should you care?</p>

August/September 2003 Rape Behind Bars Cell block sexual abuse Jesse Walker Prison rape occupies a peculiar place in the penal system. Some institutions try to fight it, while others make few such efforts. At times, it’s discussed as though it’s an unofficial part of the system: one last incentive to obey the law, in case the prospect of sustained isolation and discipline isn’t enough. Within the prisons, it’s a means of domination as well as gratification: Inmate rape is not merely an individual crime, but an instrument in establishing power relations behind bars. Statistics on prison rape are spotty, with...

Press Release Prison Rape Elimination Act Becomes Federal Law September 4, 2003 SPR Hails Historic Move Toward Safer, More Humane Detention WASHINGTON D.C. – President George W. Bush signed into law the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 today, marking the first time the U.S. government has ever passed a law to deal with sexual assault behind bars. “The passage of this law is a major milestone, finally bringing prisoner rape out of the shadows,” said Lara Stemple, executive director of Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR), a national human rights organization that has worked on the issue for more than two...

The Most-Silent Crime Prison rape gets a hearing. By Eli Lehrer After far too long a delay, Congress may finally face America's most-ignored crime problem. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, earlier this month reintroduced a bill to reduce the massive prison-rape crisis that touches nearly all of the 1.8 million Americans living behind bars. This year's first hearings on the bill will take place Tuesday. Any compassionate person should feel revulsion at the extent of prison rape. The activist group Stop Prisoner Rape estimates that about 240,000 men get raped behind bars each year. By comparison, 2002 saw about 90,000...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African prison gangs are using HIV (news - web sites) infection as punishment, ordering gang members carrying the AIDS (news - web sites) virus to rape disobedient inmates in a ritual known as "slow puncture," officials say. A spokesman for the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons confirmed on Thursday that the new practice first came to light about six months ago and was believed to be spreading. The inspectorate's director Gideon Morris told a government commission on Wednesday that the rape would be carried out by one person, or sometimes several. "They give him a 'slow puncture,'...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Prison Rapes Spreading Deadly Diseases NewsMax Wires Monday, July 29, 2002 WASHINGTON -- Prison rape has become such a common occurrence in federal and state prisons across the United States that it could have deadly consequences for the inmate population as well as the public at large, experts in the field told United Press International.Congress plans to take a closer look at the issue next week because prison rape has been associated with the spread of potentially fatal diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis."The AIDS incidence within prisons is alarmingly high," Pat Nolan, president of the non-profit...

'Horrific' rape at the Jeffco Jail Man, 19, says sex offender repeatedly assaulted him James Westbrook, suspect in jail sex assault. By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News July 24, 2002 A 19-year-old man was repeatedly raped at the Jefferson County Jail after deputies placed him in a cell with a sex offender who had attacked another inmate hours earlier. The Littleton man was sexually assaulted on Jan. 3 and 4 after he was placed in a cell with James Cornelius Westbrook, 20, who had just been convicted that day of aggravated robbery. The man was placed in the cell about...

The news media have been engrossed with stories relating to Roman Catholic priests abusing young boys. This is a huge scandal about abuses in the Catholic Church that have been going on for decades. The attention now being given to them by the media is forcing the church hierarchy to take action to see that the offenders are rooted out and appropriately punished. But the media have paid no attention to a book-length report by an organization called Human Rights Watch titled No Escape on a study of inmates in American prisons raping other male prisoners. This report says that...