Everybody’s hatin’ on Einstein’s favorite vice.Our senior senator just can’t catch a break these days. Political rags are running features on Patty Murray’s vulnerability; and smelling blood, there is an ever-growing pool of potential Republican challengers. There was also that unfortunate incident where she insulted the entire state of Alabama. Now she has attracted the ire of pipe smokers after not taking a stand against a bill filed in the other branch of Congress to raise federal taxes on pipe tobacco by 775 percent.On Jan. 13, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) introduced a bill that would raise the tax on pipe tobacco from $2.83 per pound to the same level as loose tobacco for roll-your-own cigarette tobacco, currently $24.Enraged local pipe smoker “msilbernagel” wrote to Murray asking her to oppose the bill. She (more likely someone in her office) responded by pointing out that the bill is in the other branch of Congress and even if it makes it to the Senate, will be heard in a different committee. “I want to assure you that I will be following the progress of this bill and will keep your views in mind if this or related legislation comes before the full Senate for consideration,” Murray’s letter concluded.Msilbernagel posted the letter on puff.com, which led to this comment by Smelvis: “She is a Devil in the daytime, She could care less, she passed through the suit against the Taboacco [sic] companies and it all went into the general fund, she is a lying bitch!!!! Sorry to offend any decent bitches.” (Murray was on the Congressional committee that finalized the rules for states receiving money from the $206 billion settlement between 46 state attorney generals and four tobacco companies.)Even though Murray really doesn’t have anything to do with the current bill in Congress, Seattle Pipe Club President Matt Guss says he and his fellow smokers are frustrated with lawmakers at all levels of government. “Don’t you think that there’s a sweeping movement across the country against tobacco?” he asks, quickly answering himself, “Tobacco use is like a pariah now.”Since Cohen introduced his bill, Guss says, members of the club have been writing all their federal representatives and senators (not just Murray) asking that they oppose it. The response from everyone has been “patronizing, it’s an automatic response for the most part,” he says, adding: “This is an extremely liberal far-left state and we have an extremely anti-tobacco sentiment among far-left officials.”Pipe smokers in this state have also suffered recent defeats in Olympia. Last year, the state passed a law banning online companies from shipping most tobacco products into the state, hoping to keep kids from getting smokes through the mail. Cigars were granted an exception, but not loose tobacco for pipes. “I think that the anti-smoking movement in this country got started with cigarette smoking and got pasted onto any other kind of smoking,” he says.Guss went to Olympia last month to campaign for bills that would grant the same exception to pipe tobacco, but both seem to have stalled out in committee. So pissed-off-pipe-smoker rage isn’t just directed at Murray, but she does seem to have a target on her these days.