Yes, rape is rape

The Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CCASA) is not a partisan organization nor do we endorse any candidates. However, I did want to respond to your recent article “ ‘Rape is Rape’ President Says” with some additional details and clarifications:

Although, I agree that legal statutes need to reflect the range of sexual assault in order for law enforcement and prosecutors to effectively instill public safety, I would like to offer a different perspective on Obama’s statement. In response to Todd Akin’s comments that “legitimate rape” includes physical trauma enough to cause a woman’s body to not become pregnant, I believe Obama is right. The qualifying factors of resistance and physical injury are not necessary for a sexual assault to have happened. We know that experiencing the trauma of rape often causes victims to “freeze” and not resist an attack for fear for their lives. With the revised FBI definition of rape that was released in January 2012, physical resistance is not needed to prove that the act was nonconsensual, nor, as Obama said, is rape any longer parceled out into only “forcible” and “nonforcible.” The definition also expanded beyond the old definition that you cited that focused on only women being victims and men being perpetrators to include all genders and types of penetration. Rape is no longer defined so narrowly or in ways that necessitate resistance or physical injury. Those qualifying factors do not exist. Rape is rape.

Alexa A. Priddy, Outreach Coordinator

Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault

No tax cuts and benefits, too

As a Medicare recipient who’s recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, I feel Wendy J. Smith’s (Aug. 25) anguish at the future prospects for that program. However, Paul Ryan’s voucher plan is absolutely not the way to right the Medicare “ship”.

To be blunt, if currently (at age 66) I had to go cap in hand with a $10,000-$15,000 Ryan-voucher to try to snag an insurance company to pay for my care, I’d likely be laughed out of their offices!

They’d probably think I was some kind of comedian out to try his new shtick. No lie!

A huge assumption with Ryan’s plan is that having been handed this voucher, but with no government assurances mandating coverage (as exists now, including with Medicare Advantage), seniors will just be able to pick and choose the insurance company they want. I have news for them: None of those companies will be fighting to grab a bunch of oldsters in a high-risk health pool. Especially, if you have so much as a pre-cancerous mole.

If insurance companies do sign on and accept already infirm oldsters (like me) it’ll likely be with ginormous deductibles attached, say like $10,000 a year. How long will your voucher last then?

The only way to right Medicare is to increase revenues (say by increasing the payroll tax threshold to cover at least $1 million of income). Americans must grasp they can’t have their piddly (except for the uber-wealthy) tax cuts and future benefits, too.

Phil Stahl

Colorado Springs

Not genuine job growth

I applauded Colorado Springs Mayor, Steve Bach, for his call to create 6,000 jobs annually. However, we need to begin by lobbying Congress to take a new direction in our economic policies.

The Chamber and EDC can market the region as a great place to do business because it is; however, Congress is the obstacle to job growth and genuine prosperity. Our present tax and trade policies put our global competitors at a distinct advantage against American business. I propose elimination of the corporate tax — which taxes jobs and productivity — along with lowering the individual income tax, in exchange for a Value Added Tax (VAT), and also proposed closing loopholes that encourage outsourcing and placing duties on foreign nations that engage in deceptive trade practices.

I blame Rep. Doug Lamborn and other members of Congress who consistently vote for so-called “free-trade” agreements that are neither “free” nor “fair.” These agreements, coupled with foreign governments that subsidize their country’s businesses and practice of currency manipulation, make it nearly impossible for our companies to compete.

Lamborn was one of only 79 to oppose the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (HR2378). Communities are reduced to poaching jobs from one another, and that’s not genuine job growth. Right now all the Congress and Lamborn are doing is exporting jobs and importing unemployment.

Dave Anderson, Candidate for CD5

Colorado Springs