Senator Al Franken Breaks Down and Cries on Senate Floor Over Violence Against Women Act
Longer version video here (2:16 minutes): http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sen-al-franken-breaks-down-and-cries-on-senate-floor-over-violence-against-women-act/
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Franken went on to describe how Paul’s wife Shelia Wellstone had volunteered at domestic violence shelters.
“She realized there were a lot of women across the country who needed a voice, who needed someone to speak up for them. Shelia set out to be that person,” Franken said.
He quoted a speech she had given about battered women:
I find it intolerable that a woman’s home can be the most violent or the most anxious place for her, often the most deadly, and that if she is a mother that it means that that’s the same kind of home that her children will be raised in. I’ve traveled all over Minnesota, talking with people from all parts of the community, and I’ve talked about myself and them, saying its time that we break these patterns. It’s time that we tell the secret, it’s time that we all come together to work towards ending the violence.
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Edited to add:
Final senate 'roll call vote' here: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00087
= new reply since forum marked as read
clubs for those. 
Unbelievable that you could reduce a show of sincere outrage and concern down to Boehner's meaningless tears and lump them together.
The first bill he worked on was getting helper dogs for wounded vets.
http://www.albrittain.com/service-dogs/service-dogs-for-veterans-act-passes-the-senate-but-what-does-that-mean/
and sarcasm appropriate responses to Mr. Franken's emotional response to relationship violence, consider this:
I am concerned when I see adults minimize or denigrate efforts to eliminate relationship violence, as well as the unnecessary and deleterious, yet vociferously defended physical assaults on children. Gelles, Straus and Steinmetz contend there are serious unintended consequences when physical violence is used against children:
1) Children learn to associate love with violence, since those who love them are allowed to hit them.
2) Children learn that when something is really important, it justifies the use of physical violence ("you stuck a pop tart in my precious DVD player, I'm gonna beat the crap out of you!"
.
3) Recurrent incidences of physical punishment become a fundamental part of a child's personality and world view, readily generalized to adult intimate relationships, and considered a normative, justifiable response when the now adult individual feels threatened or angry.
After more than twenty-five years of advocacy for survivors of relationship violence, I can assure you that spanking our children perpetuates a poisonous pedagogy that saddles a significant portion of our population with trust issues, poor conflict resolution skills, marginal interpersonal skills and aggression issues. Relationship violence is a ubiquitous problem globally. AND, current research shows that most US teens think that their intimate partners are justified in slapping them if they've done or said something 'wrong.'
ANY attempt to pass legislation that helps survivors of relationship violence is a good thing. Some of us might even perceive it as a dire necessity.
For more information, read anything by Alice Miller (Thou Shalt not be Aware, For Your Own Good, and The Drama of the Gifted Child, are three excellent choices), and read Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce.
But, please, whatever else you do, recognize that condescension and sarcasm are ill-advised responses.
