Wasilla billed rape victims

[not_too_L8]

How do we get the MSM to talk about these kinds of things?

snip/
When Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, the town forced sexual assault victims to foot the bill for their own rape kits, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Palin was in office for four year of the practice until it drew the ire of state lawmakers, who passed a bill to end it in 2000.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/When_Palin_was_mayor_Wasilla_billed_0912.html

and this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7063707&mesg_id=7063707

[Vogon_Glory]

1. The MSM Has Probably Filed It Under Abortion Ghetto

The presstitutes of the MSM have probably filed Palin's police department billing rape victims under their "abortion ghetto" heading, thinking that except for a few feminists, nobody will care.

I'm more cynical about Palin's move. I'm less than convinced that billing rape victims was just a move by anti-abortion zealots to discourage abortion. I'm suspicious that having police departments billing rape victims is part of a roll-out of a new bad right-wing idea--forcing crime victims across the board to pay police departments to process the evidence for their victimization. Rape victims would be charged for rape kits, burglary victims would be forced to pay for police department fingerprint tests and evidence gathering analysis. Assault victims would be forced to pay police departments for documenting and processing their injuries. Murder victims' survivors would be forced to pay for law enforcement agencies' running ballistics tests or for computer time spent tracing the history of their assailants' weapons. Credit card fraud victims would be billed for police departments' tracing thieves' criminal credit card activity.

Bad right-wing ideas usually get their roll-outs at the state and local levels. I'm convinced that the town of Wasilla's billing rape victims is probably one such roll-out. The clueless, self-important arrogant he- and she-asses who report and edit the news these days are too lazy to trace the connections unless they're FORCED to notice them.

:argh:

:grr:

[Vogon_Glory]

2. This Is a Law and Order Issue

Police departments' billing rape victims to pay for their test kits is a law and order issue, just as right-wing efforts to cripple legislation against cop-killer bullets, cripple legislation against cooling-off periods for handgun purchases, as well as the NRA's efforts to stop data-basing handgun ballistics.

Law and order may have been a right-winger's issue back in the 1960's and 1970's, when it was framed as black-on-white crime. But it's now an issue we progressives can and should use against the Radical Right. Why should safe streets and communities be a perk limited only to the very wealthy with gated communities and rent-a-cops? Do you feel safer with the federal government cutting funds for police departments to hire extra officers? Do you feel more confident about getting criminals off the street when right-wing inspired budget cuts crimp crime lab operations?

I don't. Why should you? Why should anybody?