No - NOT the crappy misogynistic House version - the House has passed the SENATE version, which expands on protections for all women, including Native American women, victims of violence in same-sex relationships, and women who are immigrants.Hooray! This is especially important in states like Minnesota, where there have been terrible issues regarding non-tribal men abusing, raping, and beating women with impunity because they were not prosecuted under state or federal laws, and because they could not be arrested and prosecuted in tribal courts.
Another loss for ugly, immoral, unethical, and violently anti-women conservative values. Another defeat for the party that wanted to continue to let domestic abusers have guns, despite the horrific number of women murdered by intimate partners, especially their husbands.
Once again the anti-Tea Party / anti-extremist new members of the GOP voted with Democrats against their colleagues in the same party, as the GOP continues to fracture between sane moderates, and insane extremist ideologues.
Had the extremist pro-women beaters backed away from their unpopular anti-women views before the 2012 election cycle, that cycle might have been a lot different. But clearly the extremist in the GOP and the Tea Party are unable and unwilling to correct their positions when they are wrong or mistaken, or both. It is an ominous pattern of failure for the far right, but an encouraging turn of events for the nation.
I predict this will be the new political reality for 2013 and 2014: moderate Republicans repudiating their own failed and failing party to pass Democratic led legislation in this and the subsequent sessions of Congress.
This will NOT be a one-off; the conservative right is wrong, and some of them have the strength to fix what is wrong - even if it means going left.
From CNN:
By a vote of 166-257, the GOP version of the Violence Against Women Act failed to win a majority after almost 90 minutes of debate. The House then voted 286-138 to pass the Senate version, with 87 Republicans joining all 199 Democrats to provide majority support.
ReplyDeleteLet's give Michele Bachmann her do ... she voted for the weak-Republican version and against the Senate version. A woman that holds her commitment to the Biblical law that Man Rules the Family.
Conversely, let us not forget to acknowledge the Republicans that buckled under ... specifically, Erik Paulsen (Father of four daughters) and John Kline (Father of one daughter) who voted for the weak-Republican alternative, but then supported the Senate version.
This kind of voting record badly hurt "Where's Chip?" Cravaack in 2012; I thin it could bite Bachmann in her behind in 2014. Beating up your wife or girlfriend is not even that popular among conservatives, except the real hard core extremists - and even they try to lie about the fact that husbands are even MORE likely than boyfriends to try to kill or injure their wives and children.
DeleteThe reality is that Bachmann barely won CD6 in 2012. She got little financial support from Minnesota, and very little of that came from her own district. If she runs at all for another term in congress, rather than gong for governor, or for senator against Al Franken, then the demographics are even more against her than they were in 2012 - the old angry white people who are the tea party are dying off, or moving away to states like Arizona - and THEN dying off. Meanwhile, every year, more and more teens are turning 18, able to vote for the first time, and not supporting her 19th century anachronistic views - not anti-gay, not anti-Muslims, not anti-sex, not anti-abortion, and certainly not pro-men beating up women.
This was a big mistake for a woman who is running out of warm bodies to vote for her in the next election.
I'm not even sure she could win a primary, if she were challenged by a serious, quality/ well-funded right wing moderate in CD-6. The tolerance for the kool-aid swilling extremist krazy is eroding rapidly. There just is no credible defense for her vote.
In other news, I hear that in the state lege, more Republicans are joining in support for marriage equality.
ReplyDeleteThe party fractures between extremes and moderates on the right is happening here too. Although it caused Bachmannt to blow her self-discipline in trying to keep her mouth shut, and her foot out of her yap.
Stupid popsie; we should revoke her membership card in the female gender.