Making Them Squirm

by digby

Here’s some good news on a different topic. The President signed the appropriations bill today and:

Within the Appropriations Act is Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) amendment prohibiting defense contractors from restricting their employees’ abilities to take workplace discrimination, battery, and sexual assault cases to court. The measure was inspired by Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang-raped by her co-workers while working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. Many Republicans opposed the legislation — saying it was an unnecessary attack on their allies in the defense contracting business — and faced intense political blowback over their positions.

The reason I think it’s good news isn’t just on the substance (which it certainly is) but on the politics. Franken’s amendment is driving the Republicans crazy because they basically voted to protect rapists and are paying a political price for that. And now they are whining that Franken was somehow “uncollegial” because the amendment put them in an embarrassing position (which makes me wonder how many other things issues are swept under the rug because it would make members of the opposition uncomfortable.)

That’s the kind of thing the Democrats should do more of. Expose the Republicans’ hypocrisy and cruelty by forcing these issues on to the agenda. Aside from the fact that Republicans (and some Democrats) are all basically employees of the military industrial complex, they have also developed a political requirement to reflexively defend anything that even has the word “military” in it. This rape exemption was a particularly obvious case of whorish subservience, but there are many more issues like this than can be used to embarrass the Republicans and they ought to be used.

The Senate is an undemocratic elite club filled with far too many egomaniacs and aristocrats. They don’t like having a sharp comedian in their midst (although having an addled movie star for president was just ducky.)His very presence offends them. Good. If that’s the case, I think Senator Franken would be just the guy to lead the charge against the filibuster. What has he got to lose?

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