Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota has demonstrated this week why he is so irritating to the pundits on talk radio and other conservative fronts. The newbie senator introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would punish contractors if they “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.”
In other words, companies that receive federal tax dollars through defense contracts (such as Halliburton, just to pick one name at random) no longer could prevent female employees who are raped or sexually molested on the job from using legal means to have their assailants arrested.
Franken’s amendment was adopted by a 68-30 vote of the Senate. The 30 Republican senators who opposed this amendment were essentially voting to condone the rape and sexual assault of female employees for private companies doing contract work for the Defense Department.
Who did this gang of 30 include? Both of Georgia’s senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, voted against the Franken amendment. Chambliss and Isakson had earlier voted to strip federal funding for ACORN because of hidden-camera videotapes showing ACORN staffers advising a GOP operative posing as a pimp on how he could avoid paying taxes on his business.
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, who confessed to patronizing a house of ill repute operated by the Washington Madam, voted against the Franken amendment. Nevada Sen. John Ensign, who has admitted having an affair with a woman who was married to one of his staff aides, also was one of the 30 senators voting against the Franken amendment.
This group of senators obviously consider it a bad thing for a community organizing group to talk about evading taxes with a GOP operative pretending to be a pimp. Rape, sexual assault, extramarital sex with a prostitute, and an affair with a woman married to one of your employees, on the other hand, is evidently OK.
Leave a Reply