WHY DO REPUBLICANS HATE WOMAN, PART II

Miss McConnell never liked women but this is going way too far

Beltway newspaper, The Hill has already pronounced the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 dead on arrival. It passed in the House 225-199 but the closet queen from Kentucky who will always be the champion of male domination, Miss McConnell, plans to use every weapon of obstructionism in his arsenal to stop it-- and if he fails, Bush has vowed to veto it.

The Hill reports that there aren't enough Republicans to join the Democrats in overcoming Miss McConnell's anti-women filibuster. The only GOP cosponsors are Olympia Snowe (ME) and Arlen Specter (PA). "Most Republicans oppose it and the White House has threatened a veto, so prospects for passage are dim. Yet it is expected to resurface as an advertising campaign against politically vulnerable GOP senators who are up for reelection, such as Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine."

Collins and Coleman are too scared of voters back home to do their normal rubber stamp routine and each is expected to swallow hard, whimper about how unfair their miserable lives are, and abandon Miss McConnell and the right-wing, voting for cloture. Greed and selfishness advocates inside the Republican coalition are screaming that it's another unfair regulation. Yes, imagine the injustice of having to pay people equal amounts for equal work, regardless of gender. Don't you feel terrible for these rotten bastards? No, well then remember to vote against every Republican in November, because the bribes they take from these businessmen and corporations is what compels them to vote against basic fairness issues like this. Arch-coward John McCain, of course, will avoid voting today.

Another reactionary, self-loathing closet queen in the Senate, South Carolina's light in the loafers McCain Mini-Me, Lindsey Graham tried twisting the popularity of equal pay in a limp attack on the bill's sponsors. “Most Americans get this. Most people understand that the government shouldn’t mandate wages like this. It’s not going to be an issue that we can’t defend against.”

And what is Miss McConnell's (and the Senate Republicans') rationale for blocking the equal pay bill for half the country's population? After all, they can hardly admit they have to do what their corporate paymasters insist on. According to this morning's NY Times Miss McConnell tried obfuscation: "We think that this bill is primarily designed to create a massive amount of new litigation in our country.” Unbelievable!

This is exactly why the Democrats need to have 60 seats in the next Senate. 60 seats; that means victory for Tom Allen (ME), Al Franken (MN), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Tom Udall (NM), Mark Udall (CO), Andrew Rice (OK), Mark Warner (VA), Rick Noriega (TX), Mark Begich (AK), Jim Neal (NC), and Greg Fischer (KY). (That means 60 without GOP puppet Holy Joe Lieberman.)

Ted Kennedy, the chief sponsor of the bill, and who blogged on it this morning at HuffPo, has a different way of looking at it than McConnell: "I can’t think of anything more in keeping with American ideals of fairness than equal pay for equal work."

Drum Major Institute has a well researched analysis on the impact of the bill on the American middle class. This week the Kentucky Women’s Political Caucus endorsed Greg Fischer in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate. Greg told the nonpartisan organization that "Women voters deserve someone they can trust to represent their values in the Senate and I am honored to have their endorsement.” When DWT contacted him today to ask him why the senior senator from Kentucky is thwarting equality for working women in Kentucky he certainly wasn't surprised. "In typical Washington fashion, Senator McConnell is blocking legislation that allows women to fight for their rights to equal pay. His obstructionism lets employers escape responsibility by hiding their decision to discriminate so they can run out the clock."