Thanks to the 163,364 of you who stopped by this week to read about Sarah Palin’s lip hair. I guess.

1. Sarah Palin, Lip Hairs and All, in which Newsweek focuses on Sarah Palin’s face.

2. The Final Hours of the Washington Blade, in which the Blade falls, but the DC Agenda rises.

3. Sarah Palin’s Entire Existence is Sexist, in which Newsweek focuses on Sarah Palin’s bod.

4. Rapists Who Don’t Think They’re Rapists, featuring trolls.

5. Chris Brown: I Love Women, in which Chris Brown joins the ranks of Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, and the skeevy guy from The Continental.

Photo via Library of Virginia

According to DCist, women in D.C. are not at risk of losing their birth control coverage, as previously reported at RH Reality Check and picked up on this blog. Sommer Mathis received this statement from Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking spokesperson Michelle Phipps-Evans:

Read More “D.C. Department of Insurance: D.C. Birth Control Is Safe” »

D.C. ladies on the pill: You may not know the name of Gennet Purcell, the woman that Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed to head up the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking last August. You should. Purcell may be responsible for sending your birth control costs through the roof. Yesterday, Amie Newman of R.H. Reality Check reported that Purcell recently gave insurance companies the go-ahead to opt out of contraception coverage. [UPDATE: Purcell's office roundly denies Newman's story. Statement after the jump].

Read More “UPDATED: D.C. Birth Control Safe, D.C. Department of Insurance Claims” »

On the Daily Beast today, Amy Siskind decries Nancy Pelosi as a “feminist nightmare.” Why so serious? Because “the House Speaker pushed the Stupak amendment through—then moved to block the woman bidding for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.”

That first point makes sense—feminist women were thrown under the bus in order to pass the health care bill, and they’re right to be pissed about it. But what’s this business about forcing us to vote for lady politicians? “A major element in our battle for equality is getting women into positions of power,” Siskind explains. “The hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders. Speaker Pelosi reveals a flaw in feminist thinking: There are exceptions. A powerful woman can in fact be an enemy to women.”

Speaker Pelosi has taught Siskind a very important lesson: Supporting female politicians is not the same as supporting women. If only Siskind had figured that out sooner, before she wrote a big ‘ol article entitled “Should Women Back Palin in 2012?”

Read More “Why Sarah Palin Is A Better Feminist Than Nancy Pelosi” »

Hello, world. The illustrious Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I were all ready to administer another of our weekly smackdowns on a very important topic like pulling out, bitchy musicians, or Megan Fox’s fake boobies. But theeeeen, we both got the vapors in anticipation of the New Moon premiere!!!!! busy. So rest easy, people likely to piss us off—we’re calling a truce today. The cat-fighting will resume next week.

Photo by ansik, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

It’s been over a month since a man died inside an underground sex club at 1618 14th Street NW. The club, operated by David J. Butler and the D.C. Wrestling Club, had been throwing near-nightly “Men’s Parties” in Logan Circle for years. The party came to a halt on the morning of Oct. 4, when one reveler died of “blunt impact injury to the head” on the club’s stairs.

Forty-five days later, the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner says that the “manner of death” in the case—which determines whether a death came as a result of a homicide, suicide, accident, or some other cause—is still pending.

Today, D.C. police released a 911 call made from outside the sex club on the morning of Oct. 4. The call, which originated from one of the club’s patrons, points to one possible contributing factor in the man’s death—that party organizers allegedly hesitated to call an ambulance:

The full transcript of the call is after the jump.
Read More ““Men’s Parties” 911 Caller: “They Didn’t Want to Call the Police”” »

A new Web site hopes to use the oldest trick in the book to combat the Catholic Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage: A good, old-fashioned forced outing!

At ChurchOuting.org, you’re invited to scroll through a list of every Achbishop, Bishop, and Reverend in the Archdiocese of Washington, zero in on one you know is gay, and then submit your “detailed account of how you know the priest in question is being hypocritical through his silence.” (Alternately, get at them via Twitter or Facebook).

Read More “Web Site Attempts to Convince Gay Priests To Stop Being Hypocrites” »

The Washington Blade served as D.C.’s gay newspaper of record from 1969 until Monday morning. This Friday, the paper intends to return as the D.C. Agenda. Editor Kevin Naff confirmed the re-Christening this evening at an event at the Hard Rock Hotel supporting the paper’s rebirth.
Read More “The Washington Blade Is Now the D.C. Agenda” »

Catholic Block: Church fights to keep weddings swinging one way.

The authors of the D.C. gay marriage bill are sensitive folks. While they’re eager to grant gays and lesbians the right to get hitched in the District, they don’t want to upset conservative churches in town. So they threw an exemption into the pending gay-marriage bill [PDF]: No church will be obligated to wed same-sexers. It’s a ceremonial loophole that’s not nearly wide enough for the D.C. arm of the Catholic Church. “The language of the bill only protects us on the day of,” says Susan Gibbs, communications director for the Archdiocese of Washington. “But for us, that day is the launching point for the rest of your life. It’s not a day-long event. It’s a life-long journey.”

Read More “A Guide to Gay Wedding Discrimination” »

As hip-hop booty model memoirist Karrine Steffans can surely tell you, life ain’t easy for a video vixen. She’s oversexed, underpaid, and generally under-appreciated for her services: basically, “sprawling undressed over a luxury car while a rapper is saying lewd things about her.” That goes doubly true for the dozens of ladies featured in “Gangsta Love,” the latest video from Snoop Dogg and Dream. Video girls have always been tasked with fulfilling a rapper’s every command—but these women are subjected to a particularly absurd laundry list of Snoop Dogg fantasies, from pretending he’s on True Blood to falling victim to a ladies’ shower hit-and-run. And when one woman can’t fulfill Snoop’s needs, he disposes of her—sometimes, over the side of a speed boat. The trials and tribulations of Snoop Dogg’s fantasy women, after the jump.

Read More “The Life of a Snoop Dogg Video Vixen” »