Here is a video of Senator Al Franken grilling a lawyer for KBR (the Halliburton subsidiary that has allowed gang-rape of its employees, human trafficking, and whose poor management has electrocuted many US troops):

KBR is a left over from the Bush administration that should be prosecuted for incompetence and gross legal violations. These guys failed to fix a problem that was electrucuting our soldiers on their own base even after it was well known there was a problem. KBR and Halliburton were the epitome of incompetent crony capitalism that was the norm under Bush. I am glad Al Franken is standing up to them.

Via Oh No They Didn't

Remember that petition put together by the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques? Well, it's grown to over 700 signatures and it now has the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Adrian Brody and Penelope Cruz.

Here I was going to write a little something about how it made me happy that she's tying the knot with Javier Bardem and she goes out of her way to sign this petition. Geezus Pe, how could you?!?!

Signataires de la pétition pour Roman Polanski / All signing parties to Roman Polanski's petition - SACD
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My heart got broken when I read yesterday that people like Martin Scorcese and Pedro Almodóvar were advocating for the release of Roman Polanski. More than 100 movers and shakers of the film industry signed a petition objecting to the fugitive rapist's arrest. wh

So I went looking for the petition put together by the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques and this is what I found in their wording: Cette arrestation fait suite à un mandat d’arrêt américain prononcé contre le cinéaste en 1978, dans une affaire de moeurs.

"Un affaires de moeurs" or a "case of morals". Really? Let me repeat myself:

Roman Polanski raped a 13 year-old girl more than 30 years ago. Roman Polanski, who was 43 years old at the time of the crime, has never denied he gave Quaaludes and alcohol to a minor so he could force her into sexual acts with him. On the contrary, he entered a plea bargain for the lesser crime of statutory rape or unlawful sexual acts with a minor. It was after the case was tried, the plea bargain negotiated and before he was to be sentenced that he fled the country.

This is not a case about Polanski sad past as a Holocaust survivor or a great director who had a moral lapse. This is about a fugitive child-rapist who skipped sentencing.

Here's the growing list of rape apologists in Hollywood:
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It is really mindboggling that somebody like Harvey Weinstein would be campaigning for Polanski's release. That doesn't make it look like Hollywood is uniting behind Roman Polanski, but it certainly makes me put up British director Stephen Frears, actress Monica Bellucci on the "You Are Dead To Me" board.

Which is why am more than grateful for Richard Cohen's sincerity. From PostPartisan - Let Polanski Go -- But First Let Me At Him:

It's alright with me if Roman Polanski is freed by the Swiss authorities who have detained him at the request of the United States -- if first I get a chance to bust him one in the mouth. I agree that it has been a very long time since he pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with a 13 year old girl -- more than 30 years, actually -- but that itself was a reduced charge. He had allegedly plied the girl with champagne and given her a quarter of a Quaalude before, as the Victorians used to say, having his way with her. He is a squalid excuse for a man.

For saying that I know I stand in mortal peril of being accused by the French and much of the Pacific Palisades of being a moral prude (ha!) or a vengeance-seeking scold. The arrest has produced consternation in Hollywood and apoplexy in France, where even the culture minister, Frederic Mitterrand, got into the act. He decried that "a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already known so many during his lifetime." Oui. But he drugged and sexually abused a child. (emphasis mine)

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Roman Polanski raped a 13 year-old girl more than 30 years ago. Roman Polanski, who was 43 years old at the time of the crime, has never denied he gave Quaaludes and alcohol to a minor so he could force her into sexual acts with him. On the contrary, he entered a plea bargain for the lesser crime of statutory rape or unlawful sexual acts with a minor. It was after the case was tried, the plea bargain negotiated and before he was to be sentenced that he fleed the country.

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