Are you for gang rape?

Well I am back from vacation and thought it was about time to start blogging again. With the usual health care debate getting old I came across a story about an amendment, Senator Al Franken introduced to the Senate. In 2005 Jamie Leigh Jones was brutally gang raped by her KBR coworkers while in Iraq. She was locked in a shipping container for more than 24 hours to prevent her from reporting it. If you don't know who KBR is, its a division of Halliburton that was relocated offshore to avoid paying federal taxes after being given a no bid contract for services in Iraq by the Bush administration. That's right our tax dollars pay KBR and they avoid paying taxes back to the government, as in our government. But that's an entirely different story. Anyways Senator Al Franken introduced an amendment that would deny defense contracts to any company that required their employees to sign away their right to sue their employer. Iraq being outside U.S. jurisdiction and a signed letter saying she could not sue KBR has left Jamie Leigh Jones with no recourse against her attackers. Thirty Republican Senators voted against the amendment. These senators included John McCain, Saxby Chambliss, Sam Brownback, and John Ensign who is in hot water for payoffs to cover up a sex scandal of his own. I wonder how they would have voted if it was their own daughter who was raped? On a side note these same senators all voted to stop funding ACORN. This is a blatant example of partisan politics and shows the republicans are not thinking clearly at this point.

Health Care and Obama

I find it interesting that in a Wall Street Journal (Read: Rich Mans Paper) poll last week 63 percent of Americans want a public option and another 10 percent want a single payer plan. That's 73 percent of people polled are in favor of government run health care. This is a response by people who read the Wall Street Journal. I wonder what the percentages would be by a cross section of America. So my question is why is congress not following what the people they are supposed to be representing want? Could it be that the people of this country no longer have a say so in government because big business has bought their way into which laws get passed. Laws that favor big business instead of favoring the people of this country. Its a shame that this is what our country has become. Look at the collapse of the financial system. We the people bailed out Wall Street and a year later no regulations have passed either house. Wall Street is venturing heavily into risky derivatives again and giving themselves huge bonuses doing it. If Wall Street wants to do that with their own money then let them. The problem is they are betting with our money so they have nothing to lose. If someone gave you 10,000 dollars to place on red or black on a roulette wheel, you would have no problem doing it but would you do that with your own money? So getting back to health care, the preamble of our constitution states "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare". I take that as "we" being the government, in the form of our Representatives in D.C. should be promoting the general welfare by passing a national health care bill. I know that maybe a stretch but is owning an Ar-15 assault rifle the same as the second amendment which states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". Think about it, it works both ways. By the way I am pro gun and have an Illinois Firearms Owners Identification Card. This was just a good analogy showing that it works both ways.

Well Chicago did not get the Olympics. There are many reasons we didn't. Such as the fact that our politics are hated around the world, which sucks because we give more in aid than anyone around the world to countries in need. Could it be the bribery scandal that reeked in Salt Lake getting the winter Olympics and bringing the IOC Chairman into our court system and making him look like an idiot. Could it be that South America has never had the Olympics there. I can tell you firsthand that Rio de Janiero is an awesome city, although they will definitely have to work on their transportation system. Whatever the reason, contrary to Rush Limbaugh, it was not Obama's fault that we didn't get awarded the games. I do think its interesting that for how patriotic the republicans claim to be, that they did not support Obama going over to Copenhagen to lobby for our country, and instead critisized him. My hats off to Senator Lindsey Graham for going out on a limb and saying to the fringe right wingers (Including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck) that Obama is a citizen, born in Hawaii, is not a Muslim and is a good man. When the people at his town halls started telling him these lies he diplomatically called them crazy. He went on to say it's time for the republican party to start policing their own ranks. I don't agree with most of his politics but I do hold him in high regard in that he has served a tour in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike our former president who ditched his National Guard unit here in the states.