About us Login Get email updates
County Fair
Print

Politico lists Polanski supporters who contributed to Obama -- but not Senators who voted against giving rape victims a day in court

October 08, 2009 11:20 am ET by Jamison Foser

Earlier, Eric took on that ridiculous second-degree guilt-by-association Politico foolishness -- the article that pretended it was newsworthy that of the $750,000,000 Barack Obama raised, $15,000 of it (0.002 percent) came from 6 of the 500 or so people who have signed a petition supporting Roman Polanski.

That's quite obviously not news.

What is news is that yesterday, 30 members of the United States Senate -- all Republicans, all men -- voted against an amendment that would prohibit defense contracts for companies that refuse to allow sexual assault victim a day in court:

Jamie Leigh Jones was a 20-year-old young woman working her fourth day on the job in Baghdad for contractor Halliburton/KBR in 2005, when she says she was drugged and gang-raped by seven U.S contractors and held captive by two KBR guards in a shipping container. But more than four years after the alleged crimes occurred, Jones is still waiting for her day in court because when she signed her employment contract, she lost her rights to a jury trial and, instead, was forced into having her claims decided through secret, binding arbitration.

Today, the Senate listened to her story before approving an amendment by a vote of 68-30 that would prohibit "the Defense Department from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve sexual assault allegations and other claims through arbitration."

That's news.  That's 30 members of the United States Senate voting to keep women like Jamie Leigh Jones from being able to sue their employers when they've been raped or assaulted on the job.

But Politico won't tell you who those 30 Senators are.  No, they're too busy scouring petitions to see if they can find a director who gave Barack Obama two grand and who doesn't think Roman Polanski should be jailed.

Hey, you have to have priorities.

Expand All Expand 1st Level Collapse All Add Comment
    • Author by epkklk851 (October 08, 2009 12:09 pm ET)
         
      It took some digging, but courtesy of the Senate website, I am including all the Nay votes to Senate Amendment 2588 to H.R. 3326:

      http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00308


      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
      Report Abuse
      • Author by NG_Officer (October 08, 2009 12:13 pm ET)
           
        Huff Po has it also
        Report Abuse
        • Author by epkklk851 (October 08, 2009 12:46 pm ET)
             
          I didn't see that, but still, I went to the primary source, rather than a secondary source; it is a historian type thing to do. It is good to know how to find such things, and it might inspire others to go digging, too. A conservative might blow off the Huff Po, but they can't blow off the Senate's own records.
          Report Abuse

my.MediaMatters.org

Login  Sign Up

About the Blog

Feed Icon
  • County Fair is a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary, breaking news and rapid response updates to major media events from Media Matters senior fellows and other staff.

Weekly Columns

Feed Icon

Feed IconRSS Feeds

Get personalized rss or email alerts

Connect & Share

Facebook Twitter Digg YouTube MySpace