In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained 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." (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.
And so newly elected Senator Al Franken 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."
And our favorite hopping mad leprechaun (he's magically delicious!) Jeff Sessions (R – AL) called it it "a political attack directed at Halliburton."
Anyway, to make a long story short, Franken's amendment passed, and here's a list of fine family values GOPers that support gang rape:
NAYs —30
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)
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New Oklahoma law will publicly post details of women's abortions online
On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will "cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year." Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:
1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions
Although the questionnaire does not ask for name, address, or "any information specifically identifying the patient," as Feminists for Choice points out, these eight questions could easily be used to identify a woman in a small community. "They're really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions," Keri Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, said. The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law, arguing that "it violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it 'covers more than one subject' — a challenge that previously worked to strike down an abortion ultrasound law."
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Clever Politico 'follows the money,' discovers terrible money trail!
Check it out everyone, the Democrats & Hollywood are all complicit in RAPE. 34k! Look at what Harvey Weinstein, who made ten million dollars in the time it took you to read the term "ten million dollars," did last year: "Weinstein last year gave $28,500 to the DNC and its White House Victory Fund, though he didn't contribute directly to Obama." Oh no!! Basically Obama killed Sharon Tate.
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How about food - check out this article form the Wash Post two years ago:
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.We shouldn't let a drop of food enter this country that's come from China. It's one thing to hope that my tshirt doesn't contain some poison, but food?
Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.
Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.
These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught - many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.
A Pennsylvania woman who drew national attention for carrying a loaded handgun to her daughter's soccer game has been shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide, the Lebanon Daily News reports.Meleanie Hain, 31, of Lebanon, Pa., and her husband, Scott Hain, 33, were found dead after a two-hour standoff with police Wednesday night, the AP reports.
Hain was dubbed the 'pistol-packin' mom' after wearing her holstered 9mm Glock pistol to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer match in 2008.
***The Lebanon Daily News says Lebanon police Chief Daniel Wright is providing little information aside from acknowledging that both were found dead and that he did not think anyone else was involved. The district attorney likewise refuses comment. The paper quotes several neighbors as saying they heard or saw the couple's children's running from the house screaming, "Daddy shot Mommy!" shortly before the 911 was called.
The paper also quotes one neighbor, Debbie Mise, as saying she feared something bad would eventually happen at the Hain home. "She just wasn't right," Mise said of Meleanie Hain, the paper reports. "You don't bring a gun to a kids' soccer game, and you don't wear a gun when you go shopping at Kohl's."
I think the thing that annoyed me the most about the glibertarian defense this summer of gun nuts packing heat at town halls and Presidential events is that everyone is a law abiding citizen. Until they break the law.
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How they think
This WSJ piece by Karl Rove says it all:
The GOP Is Winning the Health-Care Debate- Gallup says independents now favor Republicans by nine points.Passing health-care reform could be harmful to the health of congressional Democrats.
Just look at how President Barack Obama's standing has fallen as he has pushed for reform. According to Fox News surveys, the number of independents who oppose health-care reform hit 57% at the end of September, up from 33% in July. Independents are generally a quarter of the vote in off-year congressional elections.
When Karl Rove says they are winning the debate, he means nothing of the sort, because this is not about debate or ideas. It never is with the Rove Republicans. It is about political opportunism. Remember, you never roll out a new product in August.
They can't help themselves.
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Joe Lieberman, the actual human equivalent of a chain letter forwarded to you by your grandparents, has a very important tuff-guy job as chair of the Homeland Security Committee. And he'll tell ya, he does not like Obama's coterie of czars, not one bit. He'll probably hold some trenchant as shit hearings about the hated czars, or maybe draft some heroic legislation that forbids the President from appointing policy experts. Russ Feingold is down for whatever, so he's in too! And don't think he won't look up "czar" in the dictionary, because he WILL and he HAS. MORE »
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White House communications director calls Fox News 'opinion journalism masquerading as news.'
Late last month, the White House posted a "reality check" on its blog, debunking some of Glenn Beck's claims about the Olympics. At the end of the post, Online Programs Director Jesse Lee added that "even more Fox lies" had been called false by Politifact. In an article today on the White House's increasingly aggressive interaction with Fox News, Time's Michael Scherer quotes White House Communications Director Anita Dunn dismissing Fox as an "opinion journalism masquerading as news":
The general in this war is Dunn, 51, a veteran campaign strategist who arrived at the White House in May. She has been a force in Democratic campaigns since the late 1980s and helmed Obama's rapid-response operation during his run. At the White House, she has become a devoted consumer of conservative-media reports and a fierce critic of Fox News, leading the Administration's effort to block officials, including Obama, from appearing on the network. "It's opinion journalism masquerading as news," Dunn says. "They are boosting their audience. But that doesn't mean we are going to sit back." Fox News's head of news, Michael Clemente, counters that the White House criticism unfairly conflates the network's reporters and its pundits, like Glenn Beck, whom he likens to "the op-ed page of a newspaper."
Dunn isn't the first White House aide to take a shot at the legitimacy of Fox's news operation. Dunn's deputy, Dan Pfieffer, told the AP recently that Fox was an "ideological news outlet." Explaining the decision not to grant Fox News Sunday an interview with Obama recently, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, "Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again."
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Earlier this week, the National Republicon Congressional Committee (NRCC) put out a press release criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) comments on Afghanistan, saying that Gen. Stanley McChrystal should "put her in her place." Today, Pelosi responded during her weekly briefing:
It's really sad that they really don't understand how inappropriate that is. I'm in my place. I'm the speaker of the House — the first woman speaker of the House. And I'm in my place because the House of Representatives voted me there.
Pelosi added that she hadn't heard sexist language like what was in the NRCC press release in "decades."
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Report: "We will overthrow the government" - calls for violence repeatedly stoked by conservative voices:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/08/anti-obama-violence/
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Scalia goes nuts during Christiany-y court case
One of the very very important court cases the Supreme Court is tackling during its first week back is Salazar vs. Buono, about "whether a 5-foot cross on federal government land in the Mojave National Preserve violates the Constitution's Establishment Clause." This dumb cross is a memorial to World War I, specifically, and it is currently BOARDED UP because one religion or another got mad at the Christian religion. These people are all completely insane. But most insane is Antonin Scalia, who got all hot and bothered during Tuesday's hearing! MORE »
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Pardon me, your freudean slip is showing
Let's take a look at the current Rushthuglibot mindset shall we?
While pontificating to the corpse of Larry King, the queen of batshit crazy Michelle Bachmann totally redefines the term
"I have no reason to doubt that he wasn't (sic) born in the United States. I have none," Bachmann said (She later said clearly that he's shown his birth certificate). "The only place that this issue comes up is on the left. You don't hear people on the right bringing this issue up. Honest--"
