Kansas City News Blog

Al Franken

​There are a few things that the majority of us can agree on. Among those things: Rape is bad. Gang rape is really fucking bad. Employers that try to get their employees to sign away their rights to sue if they're raped by co-workers? Fucking EVIL.

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken introduced an amendment that would have kept the Pentagon from awarding defense contracts to employers that force their employees agree not to sue them if they are raped by co-workers.

Franken was doing this all because of Jamie Leigh Jones, whose co-workers gang-raped her while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq and locked her in a shipping container to keep her from reporting the attack. Jones couldn't sue the company because of her employment contract, which forced her claims of sexual assault to go to arbitration. The story is even worse than it sounds.

The good news: The amendment passed 68-30. Missouri Sen. Claire "Bear" McCaskill voted for the amendment.

The bad news: Three metro-area senators -- Kit Bond, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts -- were among the dirty 30 who voted against the anti-rape amendment. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart broke it down and gave Missouri Sen. Bond some face time last week, showing Bond's hypocrisy when it comes to Acorn. Shameful.


The vote has spawned this classy satirical Web site: Republicans for Rape.