Outrageous

I've been reading a lot of goods books lately (the latest Repairman Jack, rereading an old Nero Wolfe, an Eliot Patison about Tibet) and have seen a couple of good movies, but right now I want to discuss something I just heard on the Daily Show: that Al Franken added an amendment to bill that would allow rape victims to sue government contractors in the event that they were raped. Why this amendment? Because a woman working for Halliburton was gang-raped by her fellow contractors in Iraq and Halliburton told her that she could not sue because she had signed away those rights when she signed her contract with Halliburton.

First, is that legal? I am certain that case law does not allow you to sign away your rights. Second, how is this not evil? And third, the Senate voted purely along party lines on this-all Republicans voted against it. How heartening is that, that all Republicans voted against this and against rape victims, almost purely because they did not want to legislate how contracts are written and did not want to legislate against government contractors in general and Halliburton in particular.

Evil, pure evil.