Saturday, October 17, 2009

I llove Senator Franken!

Hi, my name is Daniel Barker, I live in Lakeland, Florida.

I am a lifelong conservative, and left the Republican Party in early 2006 over the war in Iraq and corrupt defense contractors.

Like any good conservative, I totally opposed Senator Al Franken - until the following happened:

Last Thursday, Sen. Franken introduced an amendment (S.2588) to the FY2010 Defense Appropriations Bill that would restrict funding to defense contractors who commit employees to mandatory binding arbitration in the case of sexual assault. The legislation, endorsed by 61 women’s, labor and public interest groups, was inspired by the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, who watched the vote from the Senate gallery today.
Jones was a 19-yr-old employee of defense contractor KBR (formerly a Halliburton subsidiary) stationed in Iraq who was gang raped by her co-workers and imprisoned in a shipping container when she tried to report the crime. Her father and U.S. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), worked together to secure her safe return to the United States, but once she was home, she learned a fine-print clause in her KBR contract banned her from taking her case to court, instead forcing her into an “arbitration” process that would be run by KBR itself. Just today, Halliburton filed a petition for a rehearing en banc in the 5th Circuit Court, which means that Jamie’s fight is far from over.



(source: official site for Senator Franken)

After reading how our own government contractors abused Jamie Leigh Jones, I now support Senator Franken!

I ask everyone in Washington, D.C. visiting to do the following: when walking near the Capitol, carry a big sign that says "Daniel Barker, Lakeland, Florida, loves Senator Franken"