Franken's anti-rape amendment in trouble?

By GottaLaff

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Remember those 30 Rushpublic senators and Senator Al Franken's anti-rape amendment (video here)? They have company. My Twitter pal David Waldman brings us some potentially bad news. :

An amendment that would prevent the government from working with contractors who denied victims of assault the right to bring their case to court is in danger of being watered down or stripped entirely from a larger defense appropriations bill.

Multiple sources have told the Huffington Post that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing or altering the provision, which was offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and passed by the Senate several weeks ago.

Yes, as Jed noted earlier, this amendment could actually be gutted.

Why? Lobbying from defense contractors, of course!

Go here for more from David.

Here's an excerpt from HuffPo:

Multiple sources have told the Huffington Post that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing or altering the provision, which was offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and passed by the Senate several weeks ago.

Inouye's office, sources say, has been lobbied by defense contractors adamant that the language of the Franken amendment would leave them overly exposed to lawsuits and at constant risk of having contracts dry up. The Senate is considering taking out a provision known as the Title VII claim, which (if removed) would allow victims of assault or rape to bring suit against the individual perpetrator but not the contractor who employed him or her.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/22/frankens-anti-rape-amendm_n_329896.html

KBR would skate.

Lobbyists, special interests, Big Everyone: They own us. It's time to replace these so-called lawmakers with people who actually care about Americans. This is stomach-turning.

Unacceptable.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

We have some hard work ahead of us. Need some motivation? Reread this post and watch the video above.

H/t: Pigboy

PhotOh! Rape enabler KBR's ads appear on DC Metro

By GottaLaff

Rapists and their enablers are advertising on the DC Metro now. This photo was taken by one of my Twitter pals, Rizzz:

"We're with you every step of the way!" Yesireebob.

KBR: The stellar group that made stories like this, this, this, and this possible.

This is off the rails... literally.

Here are the 30 Republican Senators Who Voted to Enable Rape

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my buddy Mark Karlin (please also see yesterday's prequel):

Rape is a horrific crime. So is the American corporate news media, which so skews the news between entertainment and GOP hit jobs that serious public policy discussions, with real information, are largely missing from public discourse.

And the names of 30 GOP Senators who stood up for rape remain largely unknown to anyone who wasn't in the Senate chamber at the time of the vote.

Much more here.

30 Republican Senators Voted to Sanction Rape

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my pal Mark Karlin:

Last week, Senator Al Franken proposed an amendment that would prohibit the Pentagon from contracting with firms that force women employees to agree not to sue companies if they are raped as a result of their employment. [...]

So, as [Jon] Stewart caustically noted, 30 Republican Senators -- 30 -- voted in favor of denying recourse to rape victims in order to protect corporate America.

It, simply put, is beyond belief in a civilized society that 30 Senators -- all Republicans -- voted in favor of rape, gang rape, in the precipitating case that caused Franken to try and end governmental sanctioning of this outrage.

As Stewart, once again, did the work that corporate media should be doing, he showed the hypocrisy of the Republican Senators, many of them who just the week before went on a successful partisan rampage to revoke government funding of ACORN, an organization that had been entrapped by a right wing wannabe pimp, but did not have any employees raped on the job. [...]

That is unspeakably horrifying, and yet the mainstream media was more absorbed with right wing attacks on Obama [...]

That's 30 Republican Senators who voted for gang rape.

The Franken amendment passed because every Democrat voted for it and a few Republicans who haven't yet descended into Dante's Inferno. [...]

It's beyond disgraceful. It's 30 U.S. Senators who are accessories to a brutal crime.

More here, including the Daily Show video.

My previous posts on this subject here and here.

VIDEOS: Franken's for protecting women v. 30 Republican Senators who aren't

By GottaLaff

Remember this post about how proud we were of Al Franken's legislation reining in KBR's treatment of sexual assault? That's because it would be unthinkable to ignore such a horrific crime... unless you're a Rushpublic senator.

So. Who would you rather be associated with? Al...



... or these schmucks, who would apparently prefer to pal around with rapists:



Oof! That hurt.

Good.

VIDEO: Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR’s Treatment Of Rape

By GottaLaff

Here's a video of someone who should have been an sworn in as senator months before he was:



I've written about Jones over and over again, distraught over what she was forced to endure and the treatment she got (unfortunately, the archives were lost when we moved to this site). This is very, very welcome news:

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” [...]

On the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) spoke against the amendment, calling it “a political attack directed at Halliburton.” Franken responded, “This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court.”

In the end, Franken won the debate. His amendment passed by a 68-30 vote, earning the support of 10 Republican senators including that of newly-minted Florida Sen. George LeMieux. [...]

Appearing with Franken after the vote, an elated Jones expressed her deep appreciation. “It means the world to me,” she said of the amendment’s passage. “It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it.”

This was long overdue. Thank you, Senator Franken, Take a look at the 30 Rushpublic senators who voted against his amendment. They include Vitter, Sessions, DeMint, and, well....

... one of the stellar "'Family Values'-rape's-okay-if-it's-committed-by-special-friends" senators (h/t: John Amussen):

GOOD NEWS: Court ruling on KBR gang rape favors victim

By GottaLaff

Photo of Rep. Ted Poe and Jamie Leigh Jones testifying before Congress on December 19, 2007 (c) Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

I did a lot of reporting on this story, but sadly, my posts were unable to be archived when we moved to Blogspot, so I can't link back. Let me summarize my overall commentary: #%@!~&**@!!

In 2005, Jamie Lee Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. In an apparent attempt to cover up the incident, the company then put her in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” Even more insultingly, the DOJ resisted bringing any criminal charges in the matter.

Are you getting angry yet? Good. But guess what? A ray of sunshine, a silver lining, a moment of sanity... an actual victory:

KBR argued that Jones’ employment contract warranted her claims being heard in private arbitration — without jury, judge, public record, or transcript of the proceedings. After 15 months in arbitration, Jones and her lawyers went to court to fight the KBR claims. Yesterday, a court ruled in favor of Jones.” Mother Jones reports:

Jones argued that the alleged gang rape was not related to her employment and thus, wasn’t covered by the arbitration agreement. Finally, two years later, a federal court has sensibly agreed with her. Tuesday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2 to 1 ruling, found her alleged injuries were not, in fact, in any way related to her employment and thus, not covered by the contract.

One of the judges who ruled in her favor, Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, is a West Point grad, Vietnam vet, and one of the court’s most conservative members, a sign, perhaps, of just how bad the facts are in this case. It’s a big victory, but a bitter one that shows just how insidious mandatory arbitration is. It’s taken Jones three years of litigation just to get to the point where she can finally sue the people who allegedly wronged her. It will be many more years before she has a shot at any real justice.

A sigh of relief... for now.