Zoe Lofgren made sure that her name echoed loudly through the hallowed halls of the internet (did you know we have halls? Yeah, like tons of halls. Acres. With pillars and junk.) a year ago during the SOPA/PIPA debates in congress, by loudly opposing it, and even engaging in a Reddit AMA, hoping to drum up some attention to the pretty alarming powers the bill gave to rights holders and the pretty alarming requirements it made of internet service providers. While I won’t say she brought the issue to Reddit’s attention in the first place, her engagement with a large and influential internet community became part of a temporary internet revolution that culminated in Wikipedia, Tumblr, Reddit, Google, and a host of other websites going completely dark or otherwise completely devoting a day to raising awareness of the bill.

She has returned to Reddit recently, at the turn of the tide to perform a rather interesting experiment:

For the first time, there was a traffic jam in the Senate women’s bathroom. There were five of us in there, and there are only two stalls. – Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)

Ah, the unforeseen consequences of the 2012 U.S. election cycle, as reported by Amy Klobuchar, senator since 2007. After all the ballots were counted and votes tallied, American voters were shown to have ushered in a record for female representation in the Senate: 20%. Maybe they’ll consider opening up another lavatory?

Previously in the 2012 Elections

Right, right, victories for women and minorities in the polls last night, but we all know that the victories of the internet come first. Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at the majority content of the world’s newest most tweeted and most Facebook-Liked post in history. This picture, with the text “Four more years.” was tweeted by and posted on the Facebook wall of President Barack Obama last night. Within the first hour of the tweet’s existence it generated almost 370k retweets, sitting at 661,267 retweets as of this post, while the Facebook post has a whopping 3,270,011 likes.

You did it, America. You made internet history.

All joking aside, let’s talk about how there are going to be more female senators than ever before in history starting next term.

No, it’s not from Amanda. Writer J. Caleb Mozzocco draws cartoons of himself asking superheroes about their political endorsements. Some of them, like Wonder Woman, didn’t really feel the need to give indepth answers, but I particularly like the level to which Batman appears to have considered his decision.

Join us behind the jump for more, and don’t worry: we’ve provided annotations for non-comics readers. You can read all of Mozzocco’s cartoons here, and find out what the dogs of the superhero universe think about the election.

This morning, as one third of the editorial staff of The Mary Sue have been evacuated from their homes (but not to New Jersey, thank goodness), comes this news. Great. Check it out below.

By now you’ve probably heard about Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” comment from last night’s presidential debate. If not, to recap: Romney answered a question about pay equality with an anecdote about how, as governor of Massachusetts, he responded to the lack of qualified female applicants for cabinet positions (O RLY, Mitt?) by making a “concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.”

You know, the wait between seasons of our favorite shows are just getting longer and longer these days. I think we need to start a petition or maybe put the decision to some kind of vote. Wait, this isn’t the premiere of Season 8 of The West Wing but a clever political ad with a huge Hollywood assist? Still awesome. Allison Janney, Janel Moloney, Bradley Whitford, Martin Sheen, Richard Schiff, Melissa Fitzgerald, Joshua Malina, and Lily Tomlin help Mary McCormack’s sister, Bridget Mary McCormack (interesting names, McCormacks), in her political aspirations. Earlier in the year, some of the cast reunited for a Funny or Die video, but this is even better. I won’t ruin anything by listing my favorite parts, just please, let me present to you the best four minutes you’ll spend doing anything today.

(via Mashable)

Editor’s Note: Earlier this week we brought you a quote from radio host Rush Limbaugh in which he waxed not-so-poetically about Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. He discussed the notion floating around that the Chuck Dixon-created Bane from DC Comics, played by Tom Hardy in the film, is tangentially related to Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital. It’s not but it’s certainly making for some good jokes. Here now is our lovely, crayon-doodling, reviewer Amanda LaPergola giving her take on it all. 

Facebook can be annoying sometimes. Ok…a lot of the time. While some people avoid the social networking site like the plague, others get a lot of use out of it. Pretty soon it will serve a very important function – allowing users to register to vote. At least if you live in Washington State. Read on for details.

“Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie — what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That’s right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date’s been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?