It seems that 30 misogynist Republicans in the U.S. Senate are totally OK with rape, at least where women are concerned. Predictably in yet another routine attempt to serve their corporate masters, (this time the GOP stood by Halliburton) Republicans voted against women and for corporate contempt of rape victims.
Some Republican senators are taking heat for voting against an amendment that would allow employees of military contractors to sue their employers if they are raped at work -- and they want the Democratic senator who wrote the amendment to help them fight off the bad publicity.
In October, 30 Republicans voted against Sen. Al Franken's amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would de-fund contractors who prevent their employees from suing if they are raped by co-workers. Since then, those Republicans have faced outrage for what critics say amounts to support for rape.
Instead of standing up to take responsibility for or clarifying their disgraceful votes, Republican cowards are instead attacking Al Franken, blaming him for their votes.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) accused Franken exploiting the story of Jamie Leigh Jones -- a former KBR employee who says she was locked in a container in Iraq after alleging she was raped by co-workers -- to further his political agenda.
"Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape --and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don't think it's a very constructive thing," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.
I guess Franken held a sledge hammer over Cornyn's head and said if he did not vote against the anti-rape amendment Franken would crack it over his head.
Our local newspaper the Austin American Statesman has a 'blogging' section that I recently became aware of by the lurid right wing headlines featured on the frontpages of their daily online edition. Authors have the ability to 'approve' comments which means that right wing bloggers don't publish any comments that make their 'arguments' (and I use the term loosely) look bad.
One blogger who caught my attention in particular was a blogger who goes by the name 'Nogirlemen' and uses a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger as his Avatar. Besides the homophobic/misogynistic undertones to his name (essentially nofaggots or nosissies) Nogirlemen spends a lot of time spreading disinformation under lurid headlines. 'Obama is a coward,' 'Obama's weakness with Whites,' etc. He also refuses to accept comments refuting his point of view, so I decided to take action.
