Yes, we had some technical difficulties on the show today, but I seem to have the problems fixed, finally.  We’ll be back Monday with phones in working order.

In the meantime, it was a good thing I had lots to talk about, as we weren’t able to get any of our guests on the line.

But we did talk a bit about the horrific revelations coming out of Cleveland’s house of horrors – and the horrific reality of sexual assault in the US Military.

Wired has the details on the Air Force Chief of Sexual-Assault Prevention’s arrest on sexual battery charges on Sunday, which came on the eve of the release of the Pentagon’s annual report on sexual assault and response – which estimates there were 26,000 incidents of sexual assault over the past year, but only 3374 reported cases.

Perhaps one reason is that the brochure distributed by the Air Force seems to make it the victim’s responsibility to avoid  being raped, rather than working with potential rapists to help and teach them not to do it!

Perhaps it’s coming from the top, as evidenced by the testimony on Monday of Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh  who dismissed the  brutality and numbers of sexual assaults as a produce of the “hook up culture”.

President Obama proclaimed that he “has [our service members’] backs”.  Randi Rhodes called him out on it and demanded he fire Welsh in this petition.  I hope you’ll sign on too!