Pro-Rape Republicans Cry For Help

this is an update to this story :http://thelieshavenotimproved.blogspot.com/2009/10/compassionate-conservatives-with-cocks.html

GOPers want Franken to defend them in opposing anti-rape amendment
By Daniel Tencer Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 -- 9:20 pm

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.

A Web site called RepublicansForRape mocks the thirty senators as "legislators who were brave enough to stand up in defense of rape." Louisiana Sen. David Vitter took heat recently for walking away from a woman who was questioning him about his vote against the amendment.

Now, some of those GOP senators want Sen. Franken (D-MN) to come to their rescue.

An article at Politico reports, "Republicans argue that Franken should make it clear that GOP senators don’t support assault or rape — especially since the amendment deals only with civil claims, making it possible for alleged rapists to be prosecuted criminally."

“I think it would be helpful for Sen. Franken to come forward and say, ‘I’m not suggesting that anybody who votes for my amendment is indifferent to crimes against women or anybody else,’” Politico quoted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as saying. “What’s going on politically with the amendment Sen. Franken can’t control, but I think it would be helpful for him personally to just let the rest of us know that’s the views of others — not him.”

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,” Cornyn told Politico.

But Politico notes that Franken's spokespeople have come to his defense, saying that Franken hasn't been exploiting the Republican senators' opposition to the anti-rape amendment.

"Despite attacks on Republicans by liberal commentators like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and on blogs such as Daily Kos, Franken never appeared on any of the shows or on the blogs to make a partisan argument about the matter, saying that the senator turned down entreaties to do so," Politico reports. "Also, [Franken's aides] point to the 10 Republicans who voted for the amendment as proof that it wasn’t a partisan measure."

Whah!

Obama to Take Away Bibles and Religious Freedom

Imagine...

*The government prosecuting a small business owner -- perhaps a Christian bookstore -- for declining to hire an open-homosexual or cross-dresser.

*Your employer telling you to remove the Bible from your desk because it is offensive to the homosexual or cross-dresser he was forced to hire.

*Your church being forced to choose between hiring a man who dresses as a woman to work in the Mother's Day Out or preschool program or facing federal investigation.

*Your teen coming home from his faith-based summer camp and telling you his councilor was an openly-practicing homosexual.

Unimaginable, you say? The government can't force churches to do that, can it?

It can -- if ENDA becomes law.

Except, that it can't. All of that is completely untrue.

Far-right Christian fundamentalist group Family Research Council has a clever idea for raising money: convince supporters that President Barack Obama will take away their Bibles and turn their kids gay.

That's essentially what the group's newest fundraising alert amounts to, with its claim that the president has a "plan" to "impose homosexuality" and "silence Christianity."

The group's four-page letter, available here [PDF link] courtesy of Think Progress, reads like end-of-days fiction, with Godless liberals on the march and only your dollars keeping America from the fires of hell.

In truth, it's a lengthy, deceptive rant about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would ensure gay, lesbian and transgendered people have a right to work alongside other Americans without fear of reprisal by the employers due solely to their sexual orientation or appearance.


According to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), "ENDA exempts all religious organizations, which includes corporations, associations, and religious societies from all of the ENDA laws. In addition, all educational institutions are exempt if the educational institution is at least substantially controlled or owned by a religious organization or if the institution's curriculum is directed towards the propagation of a religion."

The Religious exemption even allows religious organizations to discriminate on the basis of faith. For example, in a 1987 Supreme Court case the Court ruled that a gym operated by the Mormon Church could require its janitor to be a Mormon in good standing. ENDA permits religious organizations to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

ENDA specifically says that religious bookstores and day care centers areexempt from the following the ENDA provisions.

http://www.frc.org/

for FULL story go to http://rawstory.com/2009/12/farright-fundraising-tack-obama-plans-impose-homosexuality/

The Number of the Day

Apart from the human toll, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost $768.8 billion and by the end of this fiscal year (October 2010) the price tag will approach $1 trillion. The new 30,000 troop surge is expected to add another $30-$35 BILLION.

Happy Thanksgiving (unless you're a Native American)

Bradford described the night of fire, pain and death:

“It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same and horrible was the stink and stench thereof. But the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice and they [the militiamen] gave praise thereof to God.”

The colony's famous minister, Reverend Increase Mather, rejoiced and called on his congregation to give thanks to God "that on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell." Mather and Bradford are still celebrated in school texts as colonial heroes.

The Real Thanksgiving Day

To Europeans, native people and other humans who were neither Christian nor white – no matter how much they helped – were considered undeserving of recognition. Since the colonists classified their dark-skinned, 'infidel' neighbors as inferiors, they were asked to bring and serve – not share – the food, notes William Loren Katz.

Thanksgiving Day remains a most treasured holiday in the United States. Work comes to a halt, families gather, eat turkey, and count their blessings. A presidential proclamation blesses the day.

But we must never forget that the holiday pre-eminently serves political ends.

Remember in 2003 when President George W. Bush flew into Bagdad on Thanksgiving Day to visit and celebrate with U.S. troops. He stayed a few hours and brought in a host of media photographers to snap his picture bearing a glazed turkey.

No one ate the turkey, of course. It was cardboard, a stage prop.

However, this exploitation of joyous thanksgiving began almost four centuries ago, with a mythology that dates back to the first Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day memorializes the Pilgrims' survival of their first winter in New England. One hundred and forty-nine people had arrived in November 1620 aboard the Mayflower and were saved from starvation and disaster because the Wampanoug nation brought them corn and meat and taught them wilderness survival skills.

This truly was an effort worthy of gratitude. And in 1621 Governor William Bradford of Plymouth proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving – not to the Wampanougs but to his fellow Pilgrims and their omnipotent God.

In Bradford’s view, the Christians had staved off hunger through their devotion, courage and resourcefulness. And to this day American politicians, ministers and most educators would have the people see it this way.

Bradford's fable is an early example of "Eurothink" – a grotesque lie encased in arrogance. To Europeans, native people and other humans who were neither Christian nor white – no matter how much they helped – were considered undeserving of recognition.

The heroic scenario of determined and righteous European settlers overcoming hardships and travails had no room for the others.

Bradford's tale has his Pilgrims inviting the Native Americans as guests to celebrate the Europeans’ victory over famine, an act of Pilgrim generosity as the settlers and their Wampanoug friends sat down to dine on bread, turkey and other treats.

Since the colonists classified their dark-skinned, “infidel” neighbors as inferiors, they were asked to bring and serve – not share – the food.

As the English pursued their economic goals in the 1620s, they increasingly turned to outright aggression against their Native American neighbors and hosts.

Matters came to a head one night in 1637 when Governor Bradford, without provocation, dispatched his militia against his Pequot neighbors. With the Pilgrims seeing themselves as devout Christians locked in mortal combat with infidels, the officers and soldiers made a systematic assault on a sleeping Pequot Indian village.

Bradford described the night of fire, pain and death:

“It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same and horrible was the stink and stench thereof. But the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice and they [the militiamen] gave praise thereof to God.”

The colony's famous minister, Reverend Increase Mather, rejoiced and called on his congregation to give thanks to God "that on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell." Mather and Bradford are still celebrated in school texts as colonial heroes.

The 1993 edition of the authoritative Columbia Encyclopedia states of Bradford, "He maintained friendly relations with the Native Americans." [p. 351]

The authoratative Dictionary of American History states of his rule: “He was a firm, determined man and an excellent leader; kept relations with the Indians on friendly terms; tolerant toward newcomers and new religions.” [p. 77]

The views of Native Americans were not recorded, but can be imagined.

The Mayflower, renamed the Meijbloom (Dutch for Mayflower), continued to make notable voyages. In May 1657, it carried a crucial message to Amsterdam that the new Dutch colony of South Africa needed supplies as Europeans sought to gain control of another piece of the world.

Along costal Africa, the renamed Mayflower also became one of the first ships to carry enslaved Africans to the West Indies.

For these and other reasons, those opposed to oppression and favoring democratic values in the Americas have little to celebrate on Thanksgiving Day. It stands as an affirmation of barbaric racial beliefs and actions that soon shaped the world's most unrelenting genocide.

What is worth giving thanks to is the alliance between Native Americans and Africans that sprang forth to resist the English, Spanish and other foreign invaders.

In 1619, a year before the Pilgrims' arrival in Massachusetts, 20 Africans were unloaded in Jamestown, Virginia, and traded for food and water. They were sent out to work in the colony's tobacco fields as unpaid laborers.

Enslaved and persecuted together, people of color fought back together, and often united in armed maroon colonies beyond the white settlements that dotted the coastline. But above all, this alliance initiated an American tradition of resistance to tyranny, a demand for self-rule and equality.

Those ideas would appear centuries later written on a parchment celebrated on July 4, 1776.

Copyright 2009 by William Loren Katz< and adapted from his Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage. His website is: www.williamlkatz.com.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35930