As predicted, the Senate today rejected a bipartisan effort to expand federal background checks on gun purchasers. The proposal would have required checks for all transactions at gun shows and online. The 54-46 vote was a blow to the drive to curb firearms sparked by December’s massacre of children and staff in Newtown. The roll call was also a victory for the National Rifle Association, which opposed the plan as an ineffective infringement on gun rights. Read more on Newser…
Sorry if this is ruining your perfectly fine Wednesday, but we thought we’d bring this asshattery to your attention. The Senate voted in favor of the Violence Against Women Act on Tuesday, which is great! What’s not great: there were 22 jerks who voted against it. Thankfully, Whitney Dawn over at A Fine Frenzy compiled a list of all 22 dissenting Senators — which we’ve listed, along with their Twitter handles, after the jump, so feel free to put ‘em on blast.
And there is a silver lining: All 20 women in the Senate, regardless of party, voted in favor of VAWA, so there’s that.
Keep reading »
“For the first time, there was a traffic jam in the Senate women’s bathroom. There were five of us in there, and there are only two stalls.”
– Senator Amy Klobluchar (D-Minn.) on how the record number of women serving in the Senate (20!) is causing problems in the ladies’ room. Good to know that even lady senators take a long time to pee. May there be many more ladies’ room traffic jams — and a few more stalls, geez, people — in decades to come. [Washington Post]
People often joke that politics is going to the dogs, but how wrong they are. It’s actually going to the cats — one cat in particular, a Maine Coon named Hank. Hank came in third in a battle for a Virginia senate seat, behind Democrat Tim Kaine (who won!) and Republican George Allen, running on a pro-jobs, pro-cat platform. Allen, you’ll remember, is the guy who referred to a college journalist as a “macaca,” which is a racial slur for a mixed race person. Surprisingly, the cat didn’t beat Allen, but did garner 6,000 votes. Keep reading »
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Sorry, ladies, but the Paycheck Fairness Act is no more. Senate Republicans filibustered the bill and Senate Democrats fell two votes short of the 60 needed to put it to an up-or-down vote.
Generally speaking, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which passed in the House of Representatives in 2009, would have made it easier to seek damages over pay discrimination based on gender. The Paycheck Fairness Act also would have ensured employees aren’t retaliated against for seeking out info about what their colleagues get in their paychecks and would have created a new grant program to strengthen negotiation skills in girls and women.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Keep reading »
Her hubby Vince may have been the chairman willing to jump in the ring and get hit over the head with a metal folding chair, but, behind the scenes, Linda McMahon has been the one running the WWE as its CEO for the past 12 years. Having already smacked down wrestling‘s glass ceiling, Linda is now setting her sights higher. She wants to run for the U.S. Senate. While Vince is slipping into her chief executive chair, Linda is throwing her hat in the ring for a 2010 run for Congress. She has her eye on Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd’s seat. But first, in the Republican primary she’ll have to pin down economist Peter Schiff, who famously predicted the pop of the U.S. housing bubble and has been whoring himself out to fake news shows ever since. We think they should just take it to the ring—Linda has to have picked up some moves from Chyna. Oh, wait, maybe Linda can form a tag team with Stormy Daniels? Keep reading »
It’s stormy weather for porn star Stormy Daniels. Back in February, Stormy announced that she wanted to run for Senate in Louisiana, against Republican David Vitter, who’s one of the dudes linked to the DC Madam. She’d gotten as far as forming an exploratory committee in May. But her plans have been derailed lately. It’s as if the universe is telling Stormy, “It’s better to give a BJ for adult entertainment than for a political favor!” Keep reading »
Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor takes the stand today in what looks like be one of the controversial confirmation hearings yet. (Well, besides that whole Clarence Thomas, pubic-hair-on-my-Coke thing.) In May, Barack Obama announced that Sotomayor was his pick to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. Ever since then, the liberal Latina judge has faced wave after wave of Republican criticism. For the next seven days, Sotomayor will be nitpicked with the GOP’s fine sharp-toothed comb. While day one of the hearings is basically a warm-up, here’s what to expect as the questioning really heats up. [NY Times] Keep reading »
