Replublicans taking a stand on the Right to Rape

Probably most people have heard this story regarding Al Franken's Anti Rape Amendment. Apparently this is the story:

In April of 2008, KBR employee Dawn Leamon went public. A few months earlier, she had been raped and sexually assaulted by co-workers while deployed at Camp Harper, in Iraq, and after weeks of being pressured not to report the incident, forced to work alongside her attackers, and medically neglected, Leamon brought the story to a Houston attorney and to The Nation. Leamon joined a slowly building chorus of female defense contractor employees who'd been raped or sexually assaulted by co-workers while in Iraq, to utter impunity on the part of their assailants. In response, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called a hearing to investigate why the Justice Department had not prosecuted any sexual assault allegations in Iraq since going to war in the country.


When it turned out that defense contractors often required employees, as a condition of employment, to submit to binding private arbitration in disputes with the contractors (including allegations of sexual assault), instead of bringing complaints to public courts, and that the Department of Defense claimed they couldn't prosecute for this very reason (even though these clauses only prevented civil suits), Senator Ben Nelson, who called the hearing, offered a simple solution: "This might be something you want to require and include in your contracts--before you award them," Karen Houppert reported in The Nation.

Freshman Sen. Al Franken took Nelson's suggestion seriously, and has pushed through an amendment to a Defense Appropriations bill that would prevent the Pentagon from doing business with contractors who force employees into binding arbitration over rape and sexual assault charges.
Adding insult to injury, the Department of Defense could prosecute these crimes under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Patriot Act's special maritime and territorial jurisdiction provisions, but has opted not to. In the face of DoD inaction, survivors, meanwhile, had signed away their right to sue civilly and were left only with arbitration.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opposed Franken's bill. "Congress should not be involved in writing or rewriting private contracts," he argued. The bill was, he maintained, a "political amendment at bottom, representing a political attack on Halliburton." In fact, the amendment only goes so far as to require contractors doing business with the government to permit employees to sue civilly in the "most egregious violations,"

Most Republican members of the Senate voted against the bill, the bill still passed, 68-30. It received the support of only 10 Republican senators.
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This shows just how moronic our partisan system is that such a thing would be voted against on grounds of partisanism and big money...Regardless of WHY the amendment was propesed, what ever secret agenda people might percieve...its a GOOD thing to protect women from being raped while working for companies that are recieving our tax money...or at least to give them actual recorse in the most egregious cases...in this case she was gang raped.

I know...Its not acorn...but its such a scumbag move to side with Halliburton over rape victims. In essence...they are making it legal for employees to rape other employees, they cannot sue or seek criminal charges for GANG RAPE...they must settle it in arbitration...

I honestly cant wait to see the great reasons why siding with Haliburton and not ensuring the safety of women working for DOD contractors was a justifiable move. I have already read them, I am sure they will be regurgitated here.

I noticed very little being reported on this in the regular news I read so here are a few links...I couldnt find a link to anything about it on Free Republic for you right wingers.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life...lawsuit-amendment-nay-to-what-exactly-526231/

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/485424/franken_s_anti_rape_amendment

 

Did they vote no on his amendment or no on the entire bill? I think that is an important question...

 

they specificly commented on this part of the bill saying they shouldnt concern themselves with private contracts for private companies...apparently even ones that recieve our tax money. This is, of course, something they do all the time. They also said it was a political move...I guess because they believe Franken was aware they wouldnt vote against it because they recieve money from Haliburton. They claim this was a way to get paint them as people who support protecting rapists...I have a feeling come election time, people will be reminded who voted against this amendment. I didnt read any other objections to other aspects of the bill but there might have been.

 

There is usually so much stuff attached to defense appropriations bills that it is hard to tell what is being voted against. I heard today that the contentious part was the hate crime attachment to the bill. So I don't know. But, the rape thing does make for good politics come election time.

That is one thing I don't think is right about our government. What is wrong with having a bill for the rape issue. And a bill for the hate crimes stuff. And a bill for the actual defense appropriations. Jumbling all this stuff together just seems backhanded and corrupt. But, that is probably par for the course anyway.

 

Having a very limited knowledge of this whole story I will say this. It's just WRONG. It could happen under ANY administration with ANY company and it's still back to IT'S WRONG.

I will not argue politics at all on this one basically. Once again IT'S WRONG!

Those that would lay out such policies for their workers deserve to be gang raped with no recourse. Those that do the gang raping (or even a trivial little single rape) should be held accountable.

I am not a violent man but if the victim was my sister, my wife, my aunt, my friend etc. I would be anxiously awaiting the return of the perpetrators to dish out some justice. I hope they remember that when they have to come back home.

Someone will be waiting for them. I'd stand in line with a baseball bat for that homecoming.

 

Oh. Absolutely those kind of policies are wrong. And I am surprised that they are legal or binding.

 

Should it matter? If the anti-rape clause is in with a bunch of other items; that clause alone should be reason enough to vote for it. You can debate the other stuff in or out of the bill. On the other hand; what kind of woman would agree to such a contract? And then sign it?

 

Yes, I think it should matter. The rape part is important and that is why it is important enough to be on its own not used as a tool to try and suck people into voting for the rest of an unrelated bill or used as a political tool. Both of which I think are pretty much on display with this one.

 

If they can't rape and pilfer...how else are Republicans supposed to get laid??

 

Yes. It should be on its own.

 

I take it by that stereotypical comment that you are one of those left wing fanatical ''theyre out to get us'' kind of dem.

 

Rather resulting from life's experiences Bud...
..but for the record...I AIN'T a democrat,
believe it or don't. I realize the Dems ain't much better,
but if you're gonna force me to select one out of the two choices that have a realistic chance of actually winning (as our wonderful lobbyist system dictates)
then I choose what remains after eliminating the smelliest of the turds. I would agree that doesn't leave much, but, the only other choice is not to vote, which is sounding more and more appealing every day.

 

What about a lefty Obama/Reid/Pelosi/Frank/Dodd worshipping lib?

 

Oh. Ok then. Would that be a left leaning turd or a right leaning turd?

 

and the buzzer sounds....wrong!

 

I'd say whatever turd leans furthest away from the criminally saturated "right".