<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18828">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY
style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space"
bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV>Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without
individual responsibility. -- <STRONG>Ambrose Bierce</STRONG><FONT
size=2></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Not only is this story outraging, but to exempt corporations who are given
the business to defend our country and its values from even corporate
responsibility, and be defended by the majority of Republicans is an indication
of how far that party has sunk from common decency and respect for all
Americans, and how little those corporations/politicians charged with protecting
our values really believe in those values.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This story needs very wide circulation. I wonder how Risch or Crapo
would feel if it was their wives of daughters who were the victims. With
Risch, it might not matter a whit, but I expected a little better from Crapo --
although a mailing I received last week from an insurance lobby praising Crapo
apparently sent with his blessing has now cast doubt that he has much integrity
left.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>W.</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=bear@moscow.com href="mailto:bear@moscow.com">Wayne Price</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision 2020</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, October 20, 2009 8:15
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] What a GREAT
Government We Have!!!!</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>NOTICE Where the Idaho Senators came out on this one!<BR>
<DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial; FONT-SIZE: small; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px"
class=Apple-style-span><BR><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3
face=Verdana><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span>Rape case to
force US defence firms into the open<BR><BR>Senate passes measure prompted by
case of woman prevented from suing over alleged rape by Halliburton/KBR
colleagues<BR>guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 October 2009 16.04
BST<BR><BR><BR>Jamie Leigh Jones</SPAN></FONT><BR><IMG border=0 alt="[image] "
src="cid:0EA6F7EFE4BE4F1C970EBF19BD3BEA89@LocalHost" width=464
height=276><BR><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span>Jamie Leigh Jones testifying in
Washington in 2007. Photograph: Greg Nash/AP<BR><BR>US defence firms are to be
barred from lucrative government contracts if they refuse to allow employees
access to the courts, after a woman working for a Halliburton subsidiary in
Iraq was prevented from taking legal action over an alleged gang rape by
fellow workers.<BR>Al Franken, the Senate's newest member, has won an
amendment to the defence appropriations bill prompted by the case of Jamie
Leigh Jones. She alleges that she was drugged and raped by seven American
contractors in Baghdad in 2005.<BR>Jones, who was employed by KBR, which was
fighting oil fires, says that a pattern of subsequent behaviour by the firm,
including allegedly locking her in a container under armed guard and losing
forensic evidence, amounts to a cover-up.<BR>Halliburton/KBR used a clause in
her contract requiring disputes to be settled by arbitration to block legal
action – a policy which, her lawyer says, has encouraged assaults by creating
a climate of impunity.<BR>Franken described it as a denial of justice.
"Contractors are using fine print to deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their
day in court," he said in a Senate debate.<BR>In legal papers Jones, who was
20 at the time, says she was fed a knockout drug while drinking with KBR
firefighters.<BR>"When she awoke the next morning still affected by the drug,
she found her body naked and severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina
and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants ruptured and her
pectoral muscles torn‚ which would later require reconstructive surgery. Upon
walking to the rest room, she passed out again," the papers say.<BR>Jones was
treated by a US army doctor who gave forensic evidence to company officials.
She says the firm placed her under guard in a shipping container and she was
released only after her father asked the US embassy to intervene. When the
forensic evidence was handed to investigators two years later, crucial
photographs and notes were missing.<BR><BR>Jones says she identified one of
the men who attacked her after he confessed, but that Halliburton/KBR
prevented her from taking legal action against him or the company by pointing
to a clause in her contract requiring disputes to go to arbitration.<BR>She
told a Senate committee: "I had no idea that the clause was part of the
contract, what the clause actually meant, or that I would eventually end up in
this horrible situation."<BR>Her lawyer, Todd Kerry, said that by forcing
earlier assault cases to arbitration, Halliburton and other defence firms had
created a climate in which some workers came to believe they could get away
with sexual assaults and other crimes.<BR>"I've received upwards of 40 calls
to my office [about assault cases] in the past two years. A good number had
been disposed of under arbitration," he said."Had there been public scrutiny
to prevent such things happening and these cases taken to court, they might
not have been repeated. Instead one of the men who raped Jamie was so
confident that nothing would happen that he was lying in bed next to her the
morning after."<BR>Halliburton and KBR divided into separate companies in
April 2007. Halliburton declined to comment on the case.<BR>KBR has sought to
discredit Jones's account by saying she was seen drinking and flirting with a
firefighter before leaving the gathering with him, and that the man claims to
have had consensual sex with her. The firm denies that Jones was held
prisoner, but not that her injuries indicated serious sexual assault.<BR>But
KBR defended arbitration as a "fair process", saying: "Most large companies
have a dispute resolution programme which is mandatory and is designed to
address employee complaints quickly and efficiently. Under KBR's dispute
resolution programme 95% of all employee complaints are resolved quickly to
the employees' satisfaction without a mediation or an arbitration."<BR>Franken
and Kerry challenge the claim that arbitration is usually settled to the
satisfaction of complainants. Other women have come forward to accuse the
firms of not taking assault allegations seriously.<BR>Mary Beth Kineston, who
drove lorries in Iraq and survived a bloody ambush, has alleged that she was
sacked after complaining of sexual assaults by several fellow workers.<BR>"At
least if you got in trouble on a convoy, you could radio the army and they
would come and help you out. But when I complained to KBR, they didn't do
anything. I still have nightmares. They changed my life forever, and they got
away with it," she told the New York Times last year.<BR>Linda Lindsey, who
worked for KBR in Iraq for three years, has said that male supervisors
regularly offered promotions and other benefits in exchange for sex. Lindsey
said she filed complaints but they that were never acted on.Last month Jones
won a court ruling against Halliburton and KBR that the arbitration clause in
her contract did not prevent them from being sued. But the legal battle to get
the case even heard is far from over. "Four years to fight to get in court is
not a day in court," she said.<BR>The legislation to end the bar on legal
action passed the Senate with a clear majority but 30 Republican members voted
against it, including the former presidential candidate John McCain. Among the
objections were claims that the government had no business interfering in a
private contract between a company and its
workers.<BR><BR><BR></SPAN></FONT><B><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span>The Dirty Thirty and the
Silence of the Media Lambs</SPAN></FONT></B><FONT class=Apple-style-span
size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span><BR><BR><BR>When
the U.S. Senate finally stopped Joseph McCarthy’s violent, devastating attacks
on American values, 22 Senators SUPPORTED McCarthy. They were all
Republicans. <BR><BR><BR><BR>When a 19-year-old woman was reportedly
gang-raped by co-workers in Iraq, 30 Senators* supported the rapists’ company,
effectively protecting the RAPISTS along with the company. All Republicans,
these Senators self-righteously voted AGAINST an amendment holding government
subcontractors responsible for the actions of their employees. “Free
enterprise” beat out accountability for a gang-rape. <BR>What kind of
human being, much less Senator, champions private profit over justice in the
face of rape? I can only wonder -- would it have been different if a man had
been gang-raped? <BR>When The Daily Show with Jon Stewart reported this
week on the debate, then vote on the Senate Floor -- including simply
unbelievable speeches from a number of these 30 Republican Senators -- we went
looking to other news sources to learn more, quite reasonably turning first to
The New York Times. Zero, zip, zilch. <BR>Alternative media,such as
Alternet and the Huffington Post had the story, as did the member-supported
MinnPost.com in the hometown of the Senator who had introduced the proposed
amendment, Senator Al Franken. A press release was reprinted by
HometownSource.com. Coverage was also provided by numerous bloggers and
special interest groups. Except for Haliburton’s hometown Houston Chronicle,
in the mass/traditional media, we had to go to the U.K.’s Guardian** for more
information. Lest one argue that the story “isn’t news”, as of 7 PM Mountain
time on Saturday, the story ranked #4 on the Guardian website’s most viewed
list. We’re still waiting for the screaming-Fox-News-headline: Republican
Senators Support Gang-Rape by Three to One Margin.<BR>Minnesota Senator
Franken served decency well by introducing this piece of proposed legislation.
Anyone working for the United States government, even mercenaries working for
subcontractors, has the right to expect their fundamental human rights will
not be blindly violated, left with no where to turn for
justice. <BR>More, Sen. Franken has served a greater good in letting
these Senators’ actions speak for themselves. It is they -- not he -- who are
keeping front and center the reality of Republican ideological and dogmatic
maliciousness in the service of their corporate masters. <BR>These 30
Republican Senators may refuse to hold accountable government contractors and
those to whom they subcontract. For me, the larger question is -- will voters
in the states nominally represented by this Dirty Thirty hold THEM
accountable? <BR>Arbitration for gang-rape? Surely the Republican Party
has earned the right to die.<BR><BR>*– These are the Republican senators, all
male, who voted against the amendment and for the right of corporations to do
pretty much what they d**n well please without suffering any
consequences:<BR>The Dirty Thirty WALL of SHAME:<BR><BR>Alexander
(R-TN)<BR>Barrasso (R-WY)<BR>Bond (R-MO)<BR>Brownback (R-KS)<BR>Bunning
(R-KY)<BR>Burr (R-NC)<BR>Chambliss (R-GA)<BR>Coburn (R-OK)<BR>Cochran
(R-MS)<BR>Corker (R-TN)<BR>Cornyn (R-TX)<BR></SPAN></FONT><FONT
class=Apple-style-span color=#ff0000><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span>Crapo
(R-ID)</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span><BR>DeMint (R-SC)<BR>Ensign
(R-NV)<BR>Enzi (R-WY)<BR>Graham (R-SC)<BR>Gregg (R-NH)<BR>Inhofe
(R-OK)<BR>Isakson (R-GA)<BR>Johanns (R-NE)<BR>Kyl (R-AZ)<BR>McCain
(R-AZ)<BR>McConnell (R-KY)<BR></SPAN></FONT><FONT class=Apple-style-span
color=#ff0000><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span>Risch
(R-ID)</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span><BR>Roberts (R-KS)<BR>Sessions
(R-AL)<BR>Shelby (R-AL)<BR>Thune (R-SD)<BR>Vitter (R-LA)<BR>Wicker
(R-MS)<BR><BR>These are the Republican senators who voted for the
amendment:***<BR><BR>Robert F. Bennett - R-UT<BR>Susan Collins - R-ME<BR>Chuck
Grassley- R-IA<BR>Orin Hatch-R-UT<BR>Kay Bailey Hutchison - R-TX<BR>George S.
LeMieuz - R-FL<BR>Richard Lugar - R-IN<BR>Lisa Murkowski - R-AK<BR>Olympia
Snowe - R-ME<BR>George Voinovich - R-OH<BR><BR>Four of the 10 are women, bless
them all.<BR><BR>***- two Democratic senators, West Virginia’s Byrd and
Pennsylvania’s Specter, did not vote.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV></DIV>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>=======================================================<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet, <BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
<BR>
http://www.fsr.net
<BR>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================</BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>