Republican Dirty Tricks

A Republican dirty trick that is getting a lot of attention in the alternative media centers around the Al Franken’s amendment to the Defense Appropriation bill that would  punish government contractors if they “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.”   The Franken Amendment calls for  U.S. defense contractors to allow their employees access to U.S. courts in cases of rape or sexual assault, nullifying any binding arbitration employment agreement the employee may have signed so they could work in this disastrous, Republican wet-dream economy in which job opportunities are limited.

The Franken Amendment was proposed in response to a heinous crime committed in 2005 where newly minted Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones was drugged and gang-raped by her co-workers while working in Iraq.  After brutally raping an unconscious coworker, the Halliburton/KBR ghouls then locked their victim in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting the attack.

Under orders of from the Halliburton/KBR home office, Jones was locked in a shipping container and confined by armed guards without food, water or medical attention.

After a day, a sympathetic guard gave Jones a cell phone and she called her father who subsequently contacted Republican representative Ted Poe who, in turn, contacted the State Department. Agents from the U.S. Embassy in Bagdad were then dispatched to free Ms. Jones from KBR clutches.  An interesting side note is that Halliburton/KBR has since banned the use of all personal cell phones – citing no apparent reason – but anyone with a brain can see that this was so the company can protect itself from future crimes being reported, never mind that this policy endangers all Halliburton/KBR employees who are attacked while on the company clock. Read more about that here.

The heinous crime Jamie Lee Jones suffered occurred outside the jurisdiction of U.S. criminal code, but to add insult to injury, Jones was not allowed to sue Halliburton/KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in the corporation-favoring process of “private arbitration.”  Jones testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that a feeling of lawlessness permeated Halliburton/KBR and fostered a hostile working environment for women and that she personally knew of 11 other victims of crimes perpetrated by Halliburton/KBR coworkers.

As more evidence to the fact that Republican politicians operate solely as conspiratorial “inside-men” for Corporate America, 30 (all-male) Republicans voted AGAINST Franken’s amendment and thus voted to ensure that American women who are the victims of sexual assault will have no recourse for justice if they are raped by government contractors.

With this latest vote, Republicans prove once again that they operate solely for the benefit of ensuring that their rich and powerful benefactors can conduct business (sometimes tax-payer funded business) beyond the reach long arm of the law.  Republican Jeff Sessions whined that Franken’s amendment was a political attack directed at, poor, misunderstood, Halliburton.  Franken, of course, pointed out that his amendment would apply broadly, to all contractors.

As disgusting as this latest offense is, freaks at the Heritage Foundation also found a way to justify it.

In a post titled, “The Truth About the Franken Amendment,” they railed against “legal fees” incurred when corporations must fight lawsuits from “disgruntled employees” … Disgruntled, no doubt, from being anally and vaginally gang raped.

Conservative freaks are so blinded by their pro-corporate, anti-worker, anti-HUMAN agenda, they never miss the opportunity to propose “tort reform” and rail against “trial lawyers” knowing that those limited protections are the very safeguards and only recourse a person can sometime employ when seeking justice against a gigantic, government contract-funded behemoth.

The amendment passed 68-30. Here is a list of the Republicans for Rape:

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)