This week's newsletter focuses a little more on simply winning as Democrats and a little less on primaries within the Democratic Party than my recent newsletters, but it is time we start focusing on winning the Senate and Presidency. I do still refer to the need for progressives to win primaries, and once again draw people's attention to my Progressive Primary Act Blue Site. Hope you guys can help in these primaries as well as in the Senate races I highlight. But mostly, this weeks newsletter directly confront's John McCain as the candidate who promises us nothing but more war, more recession, more inflation.

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. Having organized protests against the Republican Convention, I found I had a core of activists who were looking to me for support after Bush "won" re-"election". My carefully thought out suggestions as to where we could go from that defeat led to this more-or-less weekly newsletter. EVERYONE REMEMBER: TUESDAY IS ELECTION DAY IN MANY STATES. VOTE!

This week I discuss the declining Republican Party, Ann Coulter's Extremist Intolerance, Child Soldiers in Burma, Rudy Giuliani's screwing of New York's firefighters, and rape and women's rights in Indian Country. I also focus on local actions and events in New York State, New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, California, Iowa and Mississippi. Don't forget to visit an advertiser or two and if you want more, please visit Culture Kitchen.

By Scott Swenson

Sen. Sam Brownback's remarks that rape and incest victims should carry a pregnancy to term amount to verbal rape of the body politic.

Greetings from Kansas, where I am home with family starting a summer of writing on the road.  Kansas is also home to Sen. Sam Brownback whose presidential campaign has yet to crest the two percent mark in most GOP polls.

He trails even "None of these candidates." If there were a percentile ranking for compassion, he would rank even lower.

Speaking before the National Catholic Men's Conference, Brownback said women who become pregnant from rape or incest should carry the pregnancy to term.

Brownback's argument follows a preverse "two wrongs don't make a right" logic for which the assembled Catholic men gave him a standing ovation.  Without any discussion of the millenia of sexist indoctrination introducing the concept of male dominance before a man even considers rape, Brownback ignores the original sin to get to the red meat --- the "compounding" issue of abortion.

From a purely political standpoint, Brownback's campaign is raising no money, attracting no voters, and bringing no new ideas to the table. His debate performances have a Howdy-Doodey on meth quality that only serve as comic relief from the dour Reps. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo.  He seems to believe the only way to attract attention is to state extreme positions in front of friendly audiences.

I have stayed out of the Duke Lacrosse rape story. I have no capacity for journalistic dispassion on this issue for reasons that should become clear as of this writing. My associate the Blogging Curmudgeon emailed me this CNN story this morning and I found myself staring at the smug visage of Reade Seligmann for several uncomfortable moments: handsome, entitled, determined, all-American, boy-next-door. Suddenly, I was hurled back in time to my own high school days; days I prefer to think of as long ago and far away.

In my case it was the star of our high school basketball team who I knew better as an altar boy at my church. He was handsome, poised, intelligent, and we all knew, destined for greatness. When I first heard, through the rumor mill, that a girl had accused him of date rape, I simply did not believe it. No one did. We all sounded much like the good reverend quoted by CNN:

"Knowing Reade Seligmann as well as we do here at Delbarton, I believe him innocent of the charges," said the Rev. Luke L. Travers, headmaster at Seligmann's $22,500-a-year high school.

The state legislature of Connecticut is now looking at more strictly regulating hypnosis after hypnotist Michael Johnstone videotaped himself having sex with six clients -- all of whom were apparently hypnotized. But Johnstone was basically given a slap on the wrist:

...British hypnotist Michael Johnstone was sentenced to 90 days in prison and later deported to England this year for having sex with a half-dozen patients and videotaping the trysts. The patients went to his office in Milford for anxiety treatment between 2000 and 2003.

Johnstone pleaded no contest in January to three counts each of reckless endangerment and breach of peace [as part of a plea agreement]. He also agreed not to work as a hypnotist.

"Reckless endangerment?"

The U.S. Army has proposed the development of a database to track sexual assault in the military that will violate victim privacy and will have a chilling effect on the reporting of sexual assault.

TAKE ACTION: http://www.stopfamilyviolen ce.org/211

The proposed database will include specific identifying information including victim names, social security numbers, dates of birth, service data, rate/rank, demographic information, along with information about the rape, including police reports, DNA processing data, as well as medical and counseling information from not only military but also civilian victims of sexual assault by military personnel.

Here is what one service member had to say about the proposed database: