Yesterday I posted the votes on the 2010 Franken Senate Defense Appropriations Amendment, which was created by Senator Al Franken largely in response to the legal issues Jamie Leigh Jones [trigger warning] faces after being gang raped by 7 employees at KBR.
Unsurprisingly, one of my senators was among the 30 older, white, Republican males to vote against the amendment. Here’s what I emailed him:
Dear Senator Cornyn,
I am a constituent and I am writing to express my disappointment over your vote on the 2010 Franken Senate Defense Appropriations Amendment. It speaks volumes about your opinion of rape victims when you vote in support of companies who will fire victims of rape if they try to speak out about their assault.
You do not have my vote in the upcoming election. I do not want a senator who is willing to give my tax dollars to companies who are more than happy to cover the tracks of rapists at the expense of the victim.
Greenpoint resident Chrissie Brodigan says she was riding on the L train between Bedford and First Avenue when her pug, who has health problems, overheated and began vomiting in the tote bag she was carrying him in. As she was leaving the subway station with the dog in her arms, she says a police officer’s attempt to issue her a ticket turned ugly, and when she became upset the cop began saying, “If you’re going to act like a woman I’m going to treat you like a woman.”
According to Brodigan, the arresting officer’s name is Witriol (badge number 942838). After seeing a photo, she identified him to us as Joel Witriol, who in 2006 became New York’s first Hasidic cop. Brodigan, 32, says Witriol would not accept her explanation that she was carrying the pug because it was sick, and she believes that the disturbed crowd that gathered to witness the arrest only made him angrier. She tells us, “He punched me in the back (there are bruises), he handcuffed me, and in the scuffle grabbed my breasts and pinched them.”
There are pictures of her bruised arms and legs on the main article.
Gabby Ornelas, a former teller at the giant Bank of America Corp, was instructed to use her Spanish language skills and Latina heritage to sign up customers for as many kinds of banking services as possible, she said — services that led to lucrative fees for the bank and financial entanglement for many customers.
“We were coached every day to push multiple checking accounts, credit cards and debit cards even when the customer didn’t understand how to use them,” said Ornelas, who lives in Landover Hills, Md., a town with a large immigrant population and a per-capita income of less than $19,000.
Rufus and I are participating on behalf of all those innocent people murdered at the hands of the war criminals who helmed our government for the last 8 years.
I periodically post about people, usually immigrants, who have died while in US custody. I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t really paying attention to Aafia Siddiqui’s story. I vaguely remember hearing the name a few years back, but I honestly just wasn’t listening.
It’s official: Congress has approved Plan Mexico. [...]
Plan Mexico will provide resources, equipment, and training to the Mexican government, police, and military. It will not give Mexico liquid funds. The US military, government agencies such as USAID, and US defense contractors such as mercenary firms and weapons manufacturers will receive funding to carry out Plan Mexico, Plan Mexico is yet another bill to line the pockets of the military industrial complex.
I periodically post about people, usually immigrants, who have died while in US custody. I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t really paying attention to Aafia Siddiqui’s story. I vaguely remember hearing the name a few years back, but I honestly just wasn’t listening.
