New Hobbies for Halliburton

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Certain degenerates at Halliburton and KBR will soon need new hobbies. Why? Victims of their previous hobbies will now be able to take legal action against them. Where once protected they're now subject to at least one rule of human decency.

A certain headline on SFGate caught my attention this morning: The Gang Rape and the Republicans

I'm not sure what nerve it touched -- is it because I'm a woman? liberal? HUMAN? But I clicked through. Mark Morford can be pretty aggressive, so I wanted to see what had raised his hackles. And oh, yeah, I get it. I read his column, looked at some more information, and yep -- I wanna hurl. Twice.

What did I learn?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Wait, already knew that.

Money is the root of all evil. Wait, knew that too.

There are people for whom power and money are so shiny that they've lost all sense of human decency. Wait, I'm sorry, let me correct that. It's not possible for them to have human decency -- they're no longer human.

What has me all hackling and hurling? The fact that 30 people (strangely all Republican) voted against an amendment that reads in summary:
To prohibit the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.
Hmm... Certain claims. OK, maybe Morford is adding drama. So I dug a little to find out what "certain claims" means in the text of the amendment (that thankfully passed). The definition of certain claims:
sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention.
No, really. In context, here you go:

SA 2588. Mr. FRANKEN (for himself and Ms. Landrieu) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 3326, making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes; as follows:

On page 245, between lines 8 and 9, insert the following:

Sec. 8104. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any existing or new Federal contract if the contractor or a subcontractor at any tier requires that an employee or independent contractor, as a condition of employment, sign a contract that mandates that the employee or independent contractor performing work under the contract or subcontract resolve through arbitration any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention.

Rather than actually commit to screen the string of invective vocabulary that ran across the tickertape readerboard of my brain, I'll stick with basic TLAs: WTF? NFW!

Now, please excuse me while I go hurl.

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