Can we go back to striking?
Here’s all the shit we couldn’t cover today (or yesterday):
- On International Women’s Day, Representative Jason Smith, R-MO, bravely stood up for women’s right to a tax-free tan. Smith took to the House floor and gave an impassioned defense of tanning beds, “I wanted to see who predominantly is taxed with this tanning tax. Is it men? Is it women?” he asked his colleagues. You’ll never guess the answer. “I went to a little Google search. What I found on Google is roughly 80 percent of who’s taxed are women,” Smith said. Ladies, certainly you see both the irony and injustice inherent in taxing tanning beds? If you don’t then Smith helpfully reminded Congress that it considering passing this terribly sexist tax on International Women’s Day of all days. “Today’s International Women Day,” Smith said with the surprise of a young boy who just discovered a new holiday. “It’s interesting that no one is bringing that up.” Indeed. Even more interesting is that Smith didn’t mention his support for defunding Planned Parenthood. [Slate]
- If Smith was busy defending the rights of women, then his colleagues were equally intent on defending the rights of men. During a committee hearing of the new GOP healthcare bill, a Republican Congressman defended dropping prenatal care as a requirement by pointing out that men are unjustly forced to pay for it as well. Oh well, at least we have tax-free tanning beds which I hear are a wonderful substitute for obstetricians. [NARAL Twitter]
- It’s okay, nobody in the House seems to know how insurance works anyway, especially Paul Ryan. [MSNBC]
- In other good news, only 27 percent of President Trump’s appointees are women. [Bloomberg]
- Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who reportedly accepted Trump’s offer to be the ambassador to Russia, is not a woman. [The Guardian]
- Apparently, Donald Trump has always been paranoid about people tapping his phones. [Associated Press]
- Mitch McConnell is still playing along with Trump’s paranoia. Today, McConnell said it was “appropriate” for a Congressional panel to investigate the claims. [The Hill]
- Mike Pence doesn’t know what to say about Trump’s wiretap allegations. What he can say is that “the president and our administration are very confident that the congressional committees in the House and Senate that are examining issues surrounding the last election, the run-up to the last election, will do that in a thorough and equitable way.” [The Hill]
- I don’t know what to say about Rep. Maxine Waters’s claim that the “sex actions” in the Trump dossier are true. She doesn’t seem to have any evidence other than the hopes and dreams of millions of Twitter users. [Washington Post]
Here are some tweets that the president was allowed to publish:
This has been Barf Bag.