The Party of "No... doesn't always mean 'No'"

By Ellipses

Jamie Leigh Jones alleges that in 2005, she was drugged and gang-raped in the "Green Zone" by employees of Halliburton/KBR, for whom she was also an employee. Afterwards, she was quarantined in a sparsely furnished storage container with armed guards posted outside. According to Jones, she was told that she would lose her job if she left Iraq.

Jones' contract with Halliburton stipulated that her complaint be heard in private arbitration, rather than, you know, in a court of law where there is a record of the proceedings and usually a jury and a verdict and punishment for guilt.

So, freshman senator Al Franken proposed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would prohibit contractors from, and I'm paraphrasing, "doing fucked up shit like that."

Slam dunk, right?

Ok, before we continue... here's a link to a story about Jones' ordeal.

Here's a link to the roll call record for Franken's amendment. 

And here's a link to what I think about the fine folks that we're going to talk about next.

Did I mention that October is "domestic violence awareness month?" Yeah, it even has a nice ribbon that, ironically, is about the exact color of a black eye.

Anyway, Franken's amendment passed 68-30. Senator Byrd didn't vote because he's almost dead and senator Specter didn't vote because, well, hell I don't know why he didn't vote.

But 30 nays? Really? 30 people went with "yeah, you should be able to take tax dollars and then settle your employee rape cases off the record with an arbiter that you appointed to your kangaroo court."

Certainly, with relatively broad support (one third is pretty broad) for handling rape cases the same way you deal with people that take too many sick days, the last thing you'd expect is for the group of pro-desert-ass-rape to be easily grouped into a little box of "What the fuck were they thinking-ness." But alas, such is not the case. The thirty nays came from 30 MALE REPUBLICANS. "The hell," you say? Take a gander:

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Hey! It's our old buddy Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III! I was almost afraid that I was too hard on ole' Jeff back during the Sotomayor debacle. Luckily, Sessions is a syphilitic fuck-stick through and through.

Wow! The south sure is overrepresented in this list! Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, the cackalackies, and Texas... The heartland also makes a strong showing in the "no means 'yes' unless the dude is black" category.

John McCain? What the fuck? You'd think that the venn-diagram of "anti-torture" and "anti-gang-rape-followed-by-shipping-container-imprisonment" would be a single distinguishable circle.

Anyway, Sessions objected to the amendment based on his perception that it was a political attack on Halliburton. Ok, let's say that it is (which it isn't). Does that make it A-okel-dokel for a corporation to take the place of our courts in the event that one of its employees gets assaulted and raped by other employees while doing contracted work a war zone?

Sessions argued that the Franken amendment was an unreasonable intrusion into the private sector and violated the due process clause of the constitution. First, the Franken amendment actually ensures that the due process rights of the individual are maintained... and I'd LOVE to see an argument to the contrary on that one because I don't think there is enough acid in the world to warp my reality enough for me to generate a counterargument to that one. Second, isn't the whole "intrusion into the private sector" argument the same one used against the public option in the health care debate? How do you figure you get to use the same argument against health care reform that you use in favor of corporate cover-up of GANG RAPE?

I want to see the teabaggers make up some signs saying "Keep the government out of my rape trial."

Jeff Sessions.  Sphere: Related Content