More Than 34,000 Male Veterans Treated for Military Sexual Assault

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Photo Credit: familymwrMore than 85,000 veterans were treated last year for injuries or illness stemming from sexual abuse in the military, and 4,000 sought disability benefits, underscoring the staggering long-term impact of a crisis that has roiled the Pentagon and been condemned by President Barack Obama as “”shameful and disgraceful.”

A Department of Veterans Affairs accounting released in response to inquiries from The Associated Press shows a heavy financial and emotional cost involving vets from Iraq, Afghanistan and even back to Vietnam, and lasting long after a victim leaves the service.

Sexual assault or repeated sexual harassment can trigger a variety of health problems, primarily post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. While women are more likely to be victims, men made up nearly 40 percent of the patients [34,000] the VA treated last year for conditions connected to what it calls “military sexual trauma.”

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Senate Investigators: Apple Sheltered $44 Billion from Taxes

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Photo Credit: ReutersSenate investigators accuse Apple of wiring together a complicated system to shield billions of dollars in international profits from both U.S. and foreign tax collectors.

A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 — a characterization Apple flatly rejects.

The bipartisan Senate probe also charges for the first time that Apple’s long established foreign entities, based in Ireland, don’t actually have tax-resident status there or anywhere else. The company conducts most of its international business in the European country to take advantage of lower tax rates, according to the congressional report.

Despite the findings, lawmakers behind the inquiry did not describe Apple’s tax conduct as illegal — but they sharply rebuked the Cupertino, California-based tech heavyweight on Monday for its tactics.

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House Passes Bill on Lying About Military Medals

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People who falsely claim they have received a military medal in order to obtain money or government benefits could face up to a year in jail under legislation that easily passed the House Monday.

The Stolen Valor Act, sponsored by Nevada Republican Joe Heck, is a second attempt by the House to revive a law on fraudulent claims to medals that was struck down by the Supreme Court in June last year. The legislation is identical to a measure that passed the House overwhelmingly last September but saw no Senate action before the last session of Congress ended. The vote Monday was 390-3.

The Supreme Court, in invalidating the Stolen Valor Act of 2006, ruled that while making false statements about receiving a military medal might be contemptible, such lies were protected by First Amendment free speech rights.

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Businesses Already Boosting Employee Premiums, Co-Pays for Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Already hit with cost increases to cover minor Obamacare demands, businesses are boosting employee payments through higher insurance premiums and doctor visit co-pays in advance of the bulk of the health reform law’s rules taking effect Jan. 1.

A sweeping survey of several hundred U.S. businesses by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans found that their costs have already jumped because of a rule requiring them to cover employees’ children up to age 26.

To prepare for the full impact of Obamacare, said the foundation, employers are implementing “diverse cost-management initiatives.” Some 43 percent are boosting premiums, 34 percent are increasing employee dependent coverage costs, and 31 percent are raising co-pays or “out-of-pocket limits.”

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New Weapon in the Terror Tool Kit? Encryption Software Blocks all Eavesdropping

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Photo Credit: APA cheap new encryption technology for mobile phones completely blocks eavesdropping, even from warrant-wielding law enforcement agents – raising fears the technology could fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals.

The software poses a growing problem that U.S. law enforcement agencies call “going dark” – the spread of communications technologies that cannot be intercepted even with a warrant because agencies lack the technical capabilities.

But experts say the feds’ proposed solution to get around the blackout – by legally mandating the insertion of “back doors” into such software to allow eavesdropping – creates an opening which could be exploited by hackers, online criminals or cyberspies.

The issue is not unique to the United States. Intelligence and counter-terrorism officials in the United Kingdom are concerned about the new mobile phone application, called Seecrypt, according the London Mail on Sunday.

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Half of America Wants Obama Impeached

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Photo Credit: WNDThe faux stone columns from his Denver acceptance speech are crumbling, the fireworks have fizzled and the unadulterated adulation of Barack Obama is a sour feeling of disillusion, as a new poll reveals half of Americans wants him impeached, including a stunning one in four Democrats.

“It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies, which did the telephone poll Thursday. It has a margin of error of 4.36 percent.

“Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington.”

Actually, on the issue of the Benghazi scandal, where four Americans were killed when in what may have been a politically motivated series of moves, a surging danger to Americans at the foreign service facility there was ignored until al-Qaida-linked terrorists attacked, 50.1 percent of Americans said Obama should be impeached. That included 27.6 percent of the responding Democrats.

On the scandal of the Internal Revenue Service intentionally harassing conservative and Christian organizations? Forty-nine percent said they agree that impeachment is appropriate, including 24.4 percent of the Democrats.

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Cincinnati IRS Office: The Tea Party Directive Came ‘from the Top’

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The fog of scandal hangs over a boxy, modernist, 10-story building that looks like a monument to paperwork. Shrubs and chain smokers flank its front entrance here on Main Street, in the heart of downtown. Every day, 2,000 employees go to work at various federal agencies in this John F. Kennedy-era structure, whose chief tenant is the Internal Revenue Service — which is having just about the worst week an agency can have…

People in this Cincinnati unit have been accused of using “inappropriate” and “politically sensitive” criteria to scrutinize conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don’t necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they’re engaged in partisan villainy.

“We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. “We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That’s why there are so many people here who are flustered. Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”

The staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that the determinations unit is competent and without bias…

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Obama Admin. Apparently has Another National Security Leak

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Photo Credit: Channel 2 NewsThe Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records was reportedly one element of a “sweeping” federal investigation to find out who leaked classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an American airliner.

Now, the Obama administration has reportedly apologized to Israel for another leak of classified information to the media, one that occurred earlier this month and which Israeli officials are concerned could place Israeli lives at risk.

Israel Radio’s diplomatic correspondent Chico Menashe reported Sunday morning (via the Jerusalem Post):

American officials apologized to their Israeli counterparts for confirming that Israel was behind the airstrikes on the Damascus airport earlier this month, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.

The confirmation reportedly came from the lower ranks at the Pentagon, and the reasons for the leak are being investigated.

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DOJ Subpoenas are ‘Unconstitutional,’ Hurt Press, AP President Says

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Photo Credit: APAssociated Press President Gary Pruitt said Sunday the Justice Department sent a strong – and negative — message to future sources that the government would go after them if they spoke to the press. It’s a move Pruitt called not only unconstitutional, but damaging to the ideal of a free press in the country.

“It will hurt,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We’re already seeing some impact. Officials are saying they’re reluctant to talk.”

The Justice Department sought phone records for a two-month period from more than 20 phone lines in four bureaus,including Washington and New York.

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Benghazi ‘Cover-Up to Protect Hillary’

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Photo Credit: WNDAmbassador Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, the day he died in a terrorist attack, because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered him there, according to an exclusive statement given to WND by the attorney representing Gregory Hicks, the former State Department deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affairs who was in Libya at the time of the attack.

Victoria Toensing, legal counsel to Hicks, told WND that Hillary Clinton had given Stevens direct instructions to prepare the CIA compound in Benghazi to be upgraded to the status of a U.S. diplomatic mission and Stevens, in complying with Clinton’s wishes, was in Benghazi the first time he had the opportunity to do so, cognizant of the need to visit the site before the end of the fiscal year, on Sept. 30, 2012.

“Stevens was in Benghazi because Clinton told him to go there,” Toensing explained.

Hicks’ attorney also charged the Accountability Review Board, or ARB, headed by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, was a cover-up designed to contain blame for the Benghazi terror attack at a level below Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the State Department.

On page 34 of its unclassified final report, the ARB stated: “The Ambassador chose to travel to Benghazi that week, independent of Washington, as per standard practice.”

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