Senate Passes Violence Against Women Act With Trouble Ahead in the House | Women Gun Owners Soar

The US Senate today passed a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act by a vote of 78-22. The act expired in 2011 and has languished in the House of Representatives. The bill promoted by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt is cosponsored by Idaho Republican senator Mike Crapo. The bill garnered 23 Republican votes. 

Republican men senators who voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act include John Barrasso (Wyo.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Cornyn (Texas), Ted Cruz (Texas), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), James Inhofe (Okla.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Ron Johnson (Wisc.), Mike Lee (Utah), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Jim Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kansas), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Thune (S.D.) and Tim Scott (S.C.).

Intact in the Senate bill is a provision that allows tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians accused of assaulting Indian women on reservations. This provision is regarded as being unconstitutional by many Republicans and is a key stumbling block in the House. 

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who chairs the Indian Affairs Committee, said Indian women are raped and assaulted at 2½ times the national rate, and less than 50 percent of domestic violence cases on reservations, often far from federal courts, are prosecuted. “This is about the life and death of women who need a better system to help prosecute those who are committing serious crimes against them.”

A 1978 Supreme Court decision denies Indian tribes the right to try non-Indian citizens unless an exception is granted by Congress. In the House, Reps. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Darrell Issa of California are trying to negotiate a compromise that would give defendants the right to request that their trial be moved to federal court if they aren’t getting a fair trial, writes USA Today. 

The White House says that intimate partner violence declined by 67 percent between 1993 and 2010, due to the VAWA, with an increase in victims reporting domestic and sexual violence to police, resulting in more arrests. 

The Senate bill carries a reduction of 17 percent in costs from the last reauthorization in 2005. Provisions also promise to speed up the analysis of DNA evidence and a rape kit backlog impacting an estimated 400,000 cases unable to proceed. 

1. In today’s Lady Parts News: Arizona Planned Parenthood secure. A federal judge has permanently blocked Arizona from cutting off Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood. Judge Neil Wake was appointed to the court in 2004 by President George W Bush, on the recommendations of US Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl. In Arkansas, Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe has signed into a law a bill that will ban insurance exchanges created under Obamacare from covering abortion. In Virginia, a similar plan for insurance exchanges is in play, but word is that some Republicans are skeptical of the exception.  Good news out of Colorado where Democrats defeated a Republican-backed bill that would have required doctors to investigate why a woman was seeking an abortion. Kansas is considering a similar bill and it’s seen as likely to pass, reports The Maddow Blog.

2. Hillary rules. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Friday found Hillary Clinton to be the most popular national political figure, with a favorability rating of 61 percent that tops President Obama’s 51 percent. The poll also showed that Clinton was viewed more favorably as a possible presidential candidate in 2016 than Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, and U.S. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee, reports UPI

Writing for The New Yorker, George Packer dismisses criticisms of the lack of an encompassing “Clinton doctrine” or even “Obama doctrine” on the subject of foreign policy. Not everyone respects Clinton’s endless listening tours, where “thousands of ordinary people got to question the US Secretary of State” on matters of clean water or women’s rights. 

3. Penny Pritzker for Commerce Secretary? Huffington Post reports that unions and labor activists are very unhappy at the thought that Obama fundraiser Penny Prizker could become the president’s next secretary of commerce. Granted, the prospect is just chatter — but the chatter is everywhere.

“In addition to heading the Pritzker Realty Group, Pritzker is a board member of Hyatt Hotels and the daughter of Donald Pritzker, co-founder of the international hotel chain. Hyatt and the hospitality workers union Unite Here have been locked in a long and at times ugly contract battle, with the union accusing the company of implementing “crushing workloads” at its hotels and literally hurting its housekeepers. The company, in turn, has defended its treatment of workers and accused the union of carrying out a smear campaign. ”“

4. As Congress tries to determine what — if any — reasonable gun control laws can be passed in America, the voices in the debate are largely those of men. In fact, it’s women’s participation in shooting sports that has driven their participation by 51.5 percent for target shooting from 2001 to 2011 to just over 5 million women. 

Fire arms manufacturers are marketing pink guns to the ladies with leather handbags and leopard shooting gloves to match, writes The New York Times. 

“Tina Wilson-Cohen, a former Secret Service agent who founded She Can Shoot, a women’s league with 10 chapters and 3,000 members across the country, said 90 percent of women who joined did so because “they’ve been a victim at one point of their life, of stalking or date rape or domestic violence, or they have just felt so vulnerable, and they want to feel competent and like they can protect themselves.””

5. Understanding narcissism and envy together. Ziatan Krizan of Iowa State University turns upside down the belief that narcissists feel envy. People who think they’re the greatest don’t feel envy, says Krizan. It’s individuals who think they are special and destined to be great, but they just can’t do it. They feel vulnerable, perhaps taken for granted or discriminated against with the world just not recognizing their special natures. 

“It’s these vulnerable individuals who are in some sense more worrisome because they are quiet, sort of festering in anger out there in a corner. And it’s just a matter of time before they get frustrated and lash out and verbally assault somebody, maybe even an innocent party, because of some provocation that they felt,” Krizan said.

In the simplest terms, the individual becomes violent as a form of power grab, a move to take control and drive the outcome of results.  via Science Daily