Horrifying

Every time I think they can't horrify me any more...

This is from the blog of the husband of one of my coworkers:

Absolutely unbelievable

Typically, it's much easier to blame the victim of a crime, rather than the criminal, because the victim goes to police and the criminal hides. It's also incredibly and obviously wrong.

Alaska routinely has the nation's highest rate of sexual assault. To lower the reported numbers, one small Alaskan town had and idea - charge the victims between $300 to $1,200 to report the crime. This was to cover the costs of rape kits (sample containers, swabs and other medical supplies used to collect evidence from women after they are attacked) and the forensic exams. The goal was to push costs of law enforcement onto the victims, which would discourage victims from coming forward, thereby lowering the number of reported cases of sexual assault.

This action was taken by only one small town, and was so abhorrent to the rest of Alaska that, once word got out in 2000, Alaskan state legislators immediately passed a bill making this practice illegal.

That small town was Wasilla. That would be the tiny town left $12,000,000 in debt by the irresponsible deficit spending of their former mayor. The mayor that oversaw the implementation of the "charge the victims" scheme and runaway spending was Sarah Palin.Of course, the neocon viewpoint of reporting on facts would be: Stop picking on our poor, innocent candidates. Bringing up their past record is such dirty politics, that now we'll spread lies about your candidates.