A new American hero

Jesse LaGreca: Fighting right here on the home front for our interests.

More about Jesse here and here.

The comedian vs. KBR: Guess who won

Best. Senator. EVAH:

A significant test case in the Supreme Court on the legal rules that govern military contractors’ liability for employee misconduct in war zones has now ended, without any action by the Justices. In an order now shown on the Court’s docket, the Court dismissed the case of KBR Technical Services, et al., v. Jones (09-864). This was done March 11 under the Court’s Rule 46, which allows parties to agree to end a pending case; no explanation is given for such dismissals. (The petition is here, and the brief in opposition is here.)

The case has drawn heavy publicity, and led to action by Congress to limit defense contractors’ legal rights toward their workers, because it involves claims of gang rape and serious injury of a female worker for KBR (a Halliburton Co. subsidiary) in employee housing in the so-called “Green Zone” in Baghdad, Iraq. The case now is headed for trial in federal court, currently scheduled to begin in Houston on May 16 of next year. Pretrial motions are due there in February.

>The former KBR employee is Jamie Leigh Jones, whose lawsuit contends that, three days after arriving in Iraq in July 2005, she was sexually assaulted in company barracks in Baghdad. Here is the way the Fifth Circuit Court described her claims: “Jones alleges that, following a social gathering outside her barracks, at which alcohol had been consumed, she was drugged, beaten, and gang-raped by several Halliburton/KBR employees in her barracks bedrooom.” She also claims that, after the attack, her supervisors placed her “under armed guard in a container.” After she was freed, and returned to the U.S., she complained to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and it confirmed the assault.

Initially, she sought to have her legal claims sent to arbitration but, with a new lawyer, filed her lawsuit in federal court. KBR then sought to send the entire dispute to arbitration, noting that, as an employee, Jones had agreed to arbitrate workplace disputes. A federal judge allowed some issues to go to arbitration, but ruled that others had to be tried in court. The Fifth Circuit agreed, leading KBR to file its petition in the Supreme Court in January.

The petition accused Jones of going “to great lengths to sensationalize her allegations against the KBR Defendants in the media, before the courts, and before Congress.” The reference to congressional action was to the so-called “Franken Amendment,” named for its chief sponsor, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken. That provision, a direct response to Jones’ claims, bars some Pentagon contractors from receiving federal funds if they seek to enforce arbitration of claims against them involving sexual assault or harassment.

KBR insisted in its Supreme Court filing that “the legislation does not affect this case.” Jones’ lawyers, in opposing Supreme Court review, argued that the reach of the Franken Amendment remains unresolved. That, apparently, will be one of the issues that will be explored further as the case goes forward in federal District Court.

The KBR petition, limited to the arbitration question, argued that the Fifth Circuit had adopted “a narrow construction of standard arbitration language to exclude sexual assault claims,” setting up a conflict with other federal appeals courts and state supreme courts, and breaching the strong federal policy in favor of arbitration. Jones’ lawyers responded that the Fifth Circuit was right in concluding that her sexual assault claims were not related to her employment, and thus were outside the arbitration obligation. KBR had not filed a reply brief by the time the question of dismissing its petition arose.

KBR’s lead lawyer on the petition, Washington attorney Stephen R. Kinnaird of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker, on Monday declined a request for comment on the dismissal. Heather L. Brown, communications director for KBR Inc., in Houston, issued this statement: “KBR’s decision to withdraw its petition from the Supreme Court was related to the Franken amendment. It is our belief that the language of the amendment is very broad and vague. As a result, KBR did not want to risk being in violation of the amendment, so the company withdrew its petition.”

THAT, my friends, is what happens when Democrats stand up for what's right instead of who's powerful.

Mr. Sullenberger, your fifteen minutes has begun

Mr. Bush, THIS is what badass looks like.

At a time when it's far too easy to become famous for outrageous behavior, and on a day which ended with a sociopathic man take the spotlight away from a heroic miracle for a self-serving justify the horrors of his misbegotten fuckup of an administration, perhaps having an actual hero who is an actual pilot, not a strutting martinet in a fake flightsuit; an actual hero with the unlikely name of Chesley B. Sullenberger III -- a name that sounds like it could belong to one of Bush's Skull & Bones buddies, was necessary to remind us of the kind of cool thinking that real leadership involves.

The landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River yesterday was the kind of event that evokes so many incidents both real and fictional that it would have captured the public consciousness even had it not had such a picture-perfect ending. Of course to New Yorkers, the image of a low-flying plane along the Hudson had to evoke the possibility of another terrorist attack. This is something I immediately thought of, possibly as a planned part of George W. Bush's farewell tour. After all, what could be more fitting than for the guy who ignored warnings about 9/11 to be able to leave with a literal bang? Unlike most of those who asked questions of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor David Patterson at a press conference about the incident, however, I was relieved to hear that the cause appears to have been a flock of geese, rather than an excuse for wingnuts to whip themselves into a frenzy. Then, as the stoundingly beautifully composed image of passengers being evacuated into an exit slide-turned-lifeboat, in, I thought of how cold the air and water were in New York yesterday, and then of people being put off in lifeboats from a sinking ship on April 15, 1912. Then the report came in of Captain Sullenberger walking the aisles of his plane, now waist-deep or more full of water, to make sure everyone was off.

Mr. Sullenberger is now going to be the toast of New York (if he wants to be), as well he should be. I hope he allows himself to be, even if, as I suspect he will say, he was "just doing his job." No one would wish for 155 people to be as traumatized as the passengers of this flight were yesterday. But there's something oddly fitting about Americans having this reminder yesterday of what heroism looks like, on the same day that the poseur-in-chief sucks up valuable air time frantically trying to spin his own legacy into something other than what it is.

UPDATE: Via Digby comes this post by Marcy Wheeler reminding us of Sullenberger's -- and indeed the entire flight crew's status as UNION members -- yes UNION, that entity Republicans hate most. And in fact it was Sullenberger who fought for pilots to receive the kind of training that allowed him to do what he did yesterday.