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More than 1,000 young American women have been raped or sexually assaulted in the last decade while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in foreign countries, an ABC News 20/20 investigation has found. In some cases, victims say, the Peace Corps has ignored safety concerns and later tried to blame the women who were raped for bringing on the attacks.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which gives the Nobel Peace Prize, loves an anniversary. The U.S. Peace Corps has never won the award, and is a natural winner of it. The 50th anniversary of the Corps is this year. Someone, or someones, should nominate the Peace Corps for the prize. The deadline is fast approaching: February 1. In October 1960, John F. Kennedy introduced the idea of the Peace Corps, while campaigning at the University of Michigan. He made his speech at 2 a.m. Bill Clinton was not the only lover of late-night campaigning. The Corps was established very quickly after...

(CBS) Robert Sargent Shriver Jr., or Sargent as he was better known, has died, CBS News confirmed Tuesday. Shriver had Alzheimer's disease. Shriver was perhaps the most accomplished man never elected to public office. His career in public service and civic leadership spanned the second half of the 20th century. A call from President Kennedy ignited that career. In 1961, Mr. Kennedy asked Shriver to launch a project called the Peace Corps. It only took him six months to get the program up and running. "They have to have an internal motivation, an internal conviction," Shriver said. Born in Maryland...

More than 1,000 young American women have been raped or sexually assaulted in the last decade while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in foreign countries, an ABC News 20/20 investigation has found. In some cases, victims say, the Peace Corps has ignored safety concerns and later tried to blame the women who were raped for bringing on the attacks. "I have two daughters now and I would never ever let them join the Peace Corps," said Adrianna Ault Nolan of New York, who was raped while serving in Haiti. In the most brutal attack, Jess Smochek, 29, of Pennsylvania was...

There are many websites that promote joining the Peace Corps. A family member has asked me to research the subject and help her reach a decision about joining. I have found only a few sites with cautionary comments. I would like FReepers to help me balance the information with any negative feedback available.

Burdened under a mountain of student debt? CNN has the answer - dedicate ten or so of your prime years to social work. Better yet, join the AmeriCorps. Doing her best to channel Obama's inspiring Notre Dame address about shunning immoral endeavors in the private sector for virtuous and selfless community endeavors, Stephanie Elam sounded more like a Public Works Czar than a CNN correspondent on April 6. "This is really about helping those people out, getting them ready as far as the choice for best course of study for the financial future," Elam said on CNN "Newsroom." "So you...

Peace Out for Volunteers Malcolm A. Kline, February 8, 2010 The Peace Corps recently announced which schools had produced the greatest number of volunteers. The results probably will not surprise you. “This year, University of Washington holds the top rank for large schools with 101 currently serving Peace Corps volunteer undergraduate alumni,” the federal agency announced. “This is the fourth year in a row that the University of Washington has taken the top spot.” “In the medium school category, The George Washington University ranks number one for the second year in a row with 53 undergraduate alumni serving. For small...

ON Friday we learned that the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent last month and that the economy lost 263,000 jobs. I have been unemployed since February. I have also been incredibly busy. My last job lasted one afternoon. I showed up at a large parking lot in a semi-remote area with a group of other job seekers. In a large area cordoned off with orange traffic cones, we walked around wearing fake suicide bombs and emitting low-level radiation. Our job was to test bomb-detection equipment. I earned $44. After that, even temporary work petered out. I am not unemployable....

Another chestnut dug up by The One’s bete noire at Naked Emperor News, destined to be the inspiration for a new lederhosen segment on “Glenn Beck.” You might recall that this issue’s come up before in the context of Obama’s campaign: For a few days after the election, Rahm Emanuel’s stated fondness for mandatory national service was a hot topic on righty blogs, especially after the Obama transition website posted an entry on national service “requiring” 50-100 hours per year from students. After the outcry from the ’sphere, the “requirement” language was quietly replaced by more ambiguous language about “setting...

Kate Puzey settled into the West African nation Benin almost two years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English. Relatives said she acclimated quickly, dining with local seamstresses and wise women, and attending a birthday party for a village child. Puzey, 24, wrote on her blog of witnessing a ritual circumcision and anticipating the start of mango season in April. So her parents, Harry and Lois Puzey of Cumming, were devastated to learn last week that someone had killed their only daughter. Her body was found Thursday outside her home in Benin.

Thirty years ago, future U.S. Sen. Harris Wofford led the committee that concluded that year-long mandatory civilian-service programs were politically infeasible. Wofford, however, did not give up on the idea. And as the nation prepares to mark tomorrow's annual Martin Luther King Day of Service, maybe what was infeasible then is workable today. What's changed? The economy, for one thing. Consider City Year. City Year corps members, young adults ages 17 to 24, volunteer for a year of service in cities throughout the country - usually in public schools - and receive a college scholarship in return. It was described...

Stop the Bailout for Planned Parenthood Abortion groups have submitted their 50 page proposal to the Obama-Biden transition team. At the top of the list? More taxpayer dollars for abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood. How much more? Over 1.5 billion dollars more! The Abortion Bailout Package: * $1 BILLION dollars in taxpayer funding for International Abortion Groups * $700 million in taxpayer funding for “Title X” Health Clinics (aka your local Planned Parenthood affiliate) * $65 million for the UNFPA, an international aid organization connected to coercive abortion as part of China’s coercive one-child policy * Repeal the Hyde Amendment...

Report cites Frank's proposal to cut military 25% President-elect Barack Obama raised questions during an election campaign stop in Colorado Springs when he asserted the U.S. needs a "civilian national security force" that would be as powerful, strong and well-funded as the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force, but few of those questions have been answered. But now one report is proposing a possible solution for part of the equation: From where would the money for such an organization come? Democrats in Congress now are floating the idea of cutting U.S. military spending by 25 percent, or $150 billion a...

Barack Obama in his own words explaining how he wants to have a 'Civilian National Security Force' that will be "just as powerful, just as strong and just as funded" as our military.

From July 2008, Obama on video saying: "We cannot continue to relay only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We have got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful just as strong just as well funded." Agreed, Barak needs an American Stazi for the objectives he has set. YouTube Link

These are serious times," said Barack Obama recently. "And they call for a serious debate about where we need to take the nation.”[5] That's true! So where does he want "to take our nation?" How does his version of "service" fit his vision of CHANGE? And what will it cost in terms of freedom, privacy, taxes, and government control? There's nothing wrong with the old voluntary, personal service to the poor and needy. For centuries, Christian missionaries have given their lives and comforts to serve God among the sick, hungry and dying people in distant parts of the world. Others...

Today the campaign of presumptive Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama, (D-Ill) released sketchy details of their proposed "Civilian Security Force" to the press. Although he made this statement on July 2, 2008, no more information has been made public regarding this startling revelation despite almost nonexistent media pressure to do so: "We cannot continue to rely on our military to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded". Barack Obama, July 2, 2008. Through an anonymous spokesperson, it was stated, "The...

...Obama says that as president he will “set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.” What he doesn’t say is that he’ll make such voluntarism compulsory by attaching strings to federal education dollars. The schools will make the kids volunteer. It’s called plausible deniability. In a commencement speech at Wesleyan University, Obama advised graduates not to pursue the American dream of success, but to serve others. “You can take your diploma, walk off this stage and...

Several people have sent a link to this post on the Time Magazine effort to push national service. In an addition to violating liberties on a massive scale, this program would be a colassal waste. It will rob young people of their most important years early in life, taking them out of productive work and making them less able to offer anything to the marketplace after: an extension of an already catastrophic system of publicly funded education, which already drains brain power and time. That both the left and right favor this scheme perfectly illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy and state-worshiping...