† Hillary An Advocate For Parents And Children? Ha!: Newsday reports that in May 1975 as a court-appointed attorney in AR, Hillary defended accused child rapist Tom Taylor by questioning the 12-year old victim's credibility and requesting that the court order a psychiatric examination of her to investigate allegations that “the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing" and that “she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body” (in her autobiography, “Living History,” Hillary briefly discusses the case and how it prompted her to create the state’s first rape hotline, but omits the details of her trial strategy). The victim, now 46, tells Newsday, “It's not true, I never sought out older men - I was raped” and blamed Taylor for contributing to three decades of emotional and personal problems, which culminated in a jail stint for forging checks so she could buy meth.

† Iraq Was Supposed To Become Like The USA - But The Reverse Has Happened: Part II: The New York Times offers a revealing look at Muslim student groups on college campuses, and the varying degrees to which they apply sharia law on their members - contravening American mores, as well as campus codes against discrimination:

The intense debate over whether organizations for Muslim students should be inclusive or strict is playing out on college campuses across the United States, where there are now more than 200 Muslim Students Association chapters.

Gender issues, specifically the extent to which men and women should mingle, are the most fraught topic as Muslim students wrestle with the yawning gap between American college traditions and those of Islam. …

Chapters at state colleges, on the other hand, often pull from the community, attracting students from conservative families who do not want their children too far afield.

At Yale, for example, Sunnis and Shiites mix easily and male and female students shocked parents in the audience by kissing during the annual awards ceremony. Contrast that with the University of California, Irvine, which has the reputation for being the most conservative chapter in the country, its president saying that to an outsider its ranks of bearded young men and veiled women might come across as “way Muslim” or even extremist.  …

At George Washington University, a dodge ball game pitting men against women after Friday prayers drew such protests from Muslim alumni and a few members that the board felt compelled to seek a religious ruling stating that Islamic traditions accept such an event. …

The debate boils down to whether upholding gender segregation is forcing something artificial and vaguely hypocritical in an American context.

Editorial Note: Terrorism Awareness Project has developed a petition for Muslim student groups and campus student governments to sign that affirms the right of Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims (AKA “infidels”) to worship freely worldwide without fear of intimidation or violence: 

Declaration Against Genocide

Whereas genocide - the murder, or plan to murder, an entire people - is a crime against all humanity;

Whereas genocide is a crime that has metastasized in the modern era, leading to the murders of millions of Armenians, Cambodians, Tutsis, Sudanese, Bosnian Muslims and others;

Whereas the largest and most devastating genocide on record is the Holocaust of European Jews;

Whereas a new genocide of the Jews is being called for by Islamic leaders in the Middle East;

Whereas global forces are being mobilized by the Iranian regime to eliminate the Jewish state;

Whereas the genocide of the Jews is called for in texts understood by some Muslims as authoritative and echoes through sermons in some mosques today, and is proclaimed by certain leaders of the Islamic religion;

Whereas Catholicism and other Christian denominations have condemned the Holocaust and repudiated anti-Jewish pronouncements that have stained their religious past;

We call on all Student Governments and campus Muslim groups to:

1. Condemn and repudiate the Hadith which reads: "The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time [of judgment] will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!" Sahih Muslim book 41, no. 6985

2. Condemn and repudiate the Hamas Charter which says: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”

3. Condemn Ahmadinejad who has said “The accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible."

4. Condemn Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah who has said:

† "The Jews are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment."
† "There is no solution to the conflict except with the disappearance of Israel."
† “If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

5. Affirm:

†  The right of all people to live in freedom and dignity
†  The freedom of the individual conscience: to change religions or have no religion at all
†  The equal dignity of women and men
†  The right of all people to live free from violence, intimidation, and coercion

We call upon all campus political, cultural, ethnic and religious groups to stand with us in opposing all forms of religious supremacism, violence and intimidation.

Sign the Declaration here.

[Hat Tip: Thanks to reader Susan Somerville for bringing this petition to The Stiletto’s attention.]

† Hillary’s Campaign Has Been Stiffing Small Businesses Nationwide: The New York Times has unearthed more small business owners that Hillary has skipped town without paying:

It was just $2,492.63, a pittance, really, alongside million-dollar television buys and direct mail drops.

But with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination enduring a rough patch, Peter Semetis, the owner of a deli and catering business in Lower Manhattan, had been following the news and growing increasingly worried that he was not going to be paid for the assorted breakfast trays, coffee, tea and orange juice he had provided the campaign for an event in mid-December.

“I’m afraid of her dropping out of the campaign and me becoming a casualty,” Mr. Semetis said.

So on Thursday, he went to small claims court and filed suit. Mr. Semetis, 53, said he was hardly a political pundit but like others across the country, he had become caught up in the election in the last year and was able to offer some analysis. “There is potential for her to lose Texas,” he said - an assessment not at odds with the polls - “which would pretty much force her to quit.”

Semetis says his lawsuit is “not politically motivated … [t]his is financially motivated.”

† Study: Insured Cancer Patients Do Better: A private arbitration judge ordered Health Net Inc., one of CA's largest for-profit insurers to pay more than $9 million to  52-year-old breast cancer patient Patsy Bates for cancelling her coverage while she was undergoing chemotherapy. Retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Sam Cianchetti called Health Net's practices “egregious,” and ruled that the company broke state laws and “was primarily concerned with and considered its own financial interests and gave little, if any, consideration and concern for the interests of the insured,” reports the Los Angeles Times:

When Health Net dropped her in January 2004, Bates was stuck with more than $129,000 in medical bills and was forced to stop chemotherapy for several months until she found a charity to pay for it. …

The judge's strong denunciation of the way Health Net carried out Bates' cancellation and big money award stunned and pleased regulators and patient advocates.

State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner applauded the judge, saying “health insurers simply cannot hold out the promise of insurance for their consumers and then snatch it away just when people need it most. That is illegal, immoral and will not be tolerated.” …

The case was heard by a private judge, rather than a jury, because Health Net required Bates to agree to binding arbitration, a practice common among insurers.

“That's the point," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. "Those kind of agreements that mandate arbitration tend to favor the bigger party or the interest with more economic clout.”

The size of the award will require other insurers to take notice, he said.

“It sounds like he was just outraged,” Tobias said of the judge. “He is sending a message.”

Three other cancellation lawsuits are pending against Health Net, including a proposed class action seeking damages on behalf of 1,600 people by the lawyer who represented Bates in the arbitration hearing. 

† Three CA Men Convicted Of Bilking Seniors Out Of Their Life Savings: Wheelchair-bound defendant John Heath, 81, convicted last month of running a Ponzi scheme that bilked elderly investors out of their life savings, was sentenced to 28 years in prison and ordered to pay $117 million in restitution to his victims, reports The Associated Press. His son Daniel W. Heath, 51 – convicted on nearly 400 criminal counts - faces up to 100 years in jail and former associate, Denis O'Brien, 53, is looking at as much as 30 years.