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Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday suggested that women shouldn't complain about the difficulties of juggling a family and a career because "no one can have it all."

During a panel discussion on ABC News, host George Stephanopolous noted that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg had started a national conversation with her new book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which argues that more women need to pursue their ambition to be leaders.

"Just look at one the reaction to Sheryl Sandberg's book has done," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) observed. "It is so hard for women to wear our ambition on our sleeve, to pursue our dreams, to believe that we can reach the top on any profession and that we should always shoot for the stars."

The Florida Democrat added: "And what Sheryl Sandberg has done for little girls -- my two daughters and little girls across America -- is written a book, a manifesto, that says it is okay to ambitious to, it's okay to want to have it all, that balance is important, but there is nothing wrong with trying have a full professional life and be a leader and succeed as a woman and also having a full family life. You don't have to choose. It can be both."

Will, however, used to an column in The Atlantic by Ann Marie Slaughter to push back against the notion that women should expect to be successful in their careers while raising a family.

"And when Ann Marie Slaughter causes a huge national uproar with an article in, I guess, The Atlantic that says women can't have it all after all, I've got news for her, no one can have it all," he quipped.

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It was nice to see some push back from the constant drone we're treated to by the talking heads in the media, who apparently will not be happy until Democrats agree to inflict some more pain on their constituents and raise Medicare retirement age along with benefit cuts. As Krugman rightfully noted, all the happy talk about politicians sitting down and having dinner together isn't going to resolve the fundamental policy differences between the two parties -- or the fact that one of them wants to completely take down our social safety nets and privatize them.

He called out George Will as well who was demanding that Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz explain whether Democrats would agree to raise the Medicare age:

KRUGMAN: Is it a condition of any Republican support that you have to go for really terrible policies? Because raising the Medicare age is a terrible policy. It raises medical costs, it does very little to improve the budget. It introduces a lot of hardship. Means testing in Medicare is a better policy. I don't particularly like it, but it's a better policy.

That's the whole idea. They know it's terrible policy and they want Democrats to do their bidding for them so they can immediately turn around and run ads against them in the mid-term elections. They were cynical enough to do it before and they'll do it again. So it's not just bad policy, it's bad and stupid politics as well.

The conventional wisdom talk from the Bloomberg White House corespondent here wasn't much better. There's nothing "optimistic" about these politicians potentially sticking it to the poor and the elderly when we've got record income disparity in the United States right now.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign said on Wednesday that they disagreed with Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's statement that pregnancy from rape "is something that God intended to happen," but the former Massachusetts governor still supports him.

During a debate on Tuesday night, Mourdock had said that he did not support abortion in cases of rape or incest.

“I believe life begins at conception,” he explained. “The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.”

Romney has endorsed Mourdock and recorded an advertisement personally encouraging voters to support him. Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's super PAC also donated $5,000 to the tea party-backed candidate in June.

In August, Romney appeared at a campaign event with Mourdock in Evansville, Indiana.

"This is a man that I want to see in Washington to make sure that we cannot just talk about changing things, but actually have the votes to get things changed," Romney said.

Democrats have called on Romney to rescind his endorsement of Mourdock and immediately pull the advertisement.

But Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul insisted on Wednesday that the former governor still backed Mourdock.

"Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock, and Mr. Mourdock’s comments do not reflect Gov. Romney’s views," Saul said in a statement. "We disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest but still support him."

For his part, Mourdock held a press conference on Wednesday and said his comments had been taken out of context.

"I made a comment that I made, quite honestly, from the deepest roots and the greatest base of my faith," the Senate candidate told reporters. "I'm a much more humble person this morning because so many people mistook, twisted, came to misunderstand the points that I was trying to make."

"I spoke from my heart, I spoke with my principle, I spoke from my faith, and if others wish to turn those words and somehow use them against me, again, that's what's wrong with Washington today," he added. "Anyone who goes to the video tape and views [it] understands fully what I meant."

"I don't think God wants rape, I don't think he wants that at all because rape is evil. I abhor evil. I want to assure every woman who sees this and reads the story that I abhor it and I'm confident God abhors it."

In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz connected Mourdock's comments to Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's claim that women could not get pregnant through "legitimate rape."

"Unfortunately, these types of comments have become part and parcel of the modern Republican Party's platform towards women's health," she said. "Congressional Republicans like Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, have worked to outlaw all abortions and even narrow the definition of rape."

"Try as he may to distance himself, Mitt Romney has demonstrated time and time again that he is a part of the extreme right wing of the GOP with the likes of Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, especially when it comes to issues effecting women and their bodies. Just this weekend, Romney endorsee Steve King questioned whether birth control is even legal. There is definitely a pattern here."

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Joan Walsh was one of the many great writers out there who called Paul Ryan out for his lie-filled Republican National Convention speech this Wednesday evening and she appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, along with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to discuss that very speech. As she noted in her conversation with Matthews in the clip above, it's important that the media quits with making excuses for these politicians and pretending this is just political rhetoric. When they're lying to the public, a lie needs to be called what it is, a lie.

And when it comes to lying, Ryan's speech wasn't just brazen with how easily disprovable the lies were in his speech, but for the sheer number as well. His speech was filed with them from beginning to end to an extent that should be shocking for anyone paying an ounce of attention to what's going on and the extreme disconnect between Ryan's rhetoric and how he's governed and what he's unwilling to take responsibility for, yet heap onto President Obama.

You can read more on Joan's response to Ryan's speech here: Paul Ryan’s brazen lies:

Paul Ryan gave a feisty anti-Obama speech that will have fact-checkers working for days. His most brazen lie accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare by taking the exact same $716 billion that Ryan and the House GOP notoriously voted to slash. It was stunning.

But that’s not all. He attacked Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008. He hit him for a credit-rating downgrade that S&P essentially blamed on GOP intransigence. He claimed that all taxpayers got from the 2009 stimulus was “more debt,” when most got a tax cut (and the stimulus is known to have saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs). He derided the president for walking away from the Simpson Bowles commission deficit-cutting recommendations when Ryan himself, a commission member, voted against those recommendations.

He blamed Obama for a deficit mostly created by programs he himself voted for – from two wars, tax cuts, new Medicare benefits and TARP.

And of course, he riffed on the tired central lie of the GOP convention: that the president said “government gets the credit” for small businesses, not the business owners themselves.

Other than that, it was a great speech.

Interestingly, for all his lies, Ryan didn’t repeat the Romney camp’s false claim that Obama did away with the welfare system’s work requirements. Maybe he ran out of time.

Ryan got off a few good zingers: “College grads shouldn’t have to live out their 20s in childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters.” He didn’t mention that he opposed legislation to keep student loan rates from doubling. His remarks about his childhood were slightly moving. He talked about losing his father at 16, and he called his mother, who went back to school and to work after that, his role model. But he never mentioned the Social Security death benefits that let him go to an out-of-state school. Occasionally he seemed to be going after swing voters, rather than his hard-right base, taking a more in sorrow than anger tone about Obama’s failings. Then he’d mix things up with nastiness and lies. Read on...

Addendum (Nicole): The Week notes fifteen ways the media avoids calling Paul Ryan a liar.

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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Thursday accused Democrats of inventing an "imaginary" war on women to score political points in an election year.

During a Senate speech outlining why he supported reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, something that many Republicans oppose, McCain blasted Democrats for "dividing the country in the name of greater fairness and unity."

"My friends, this supposed 'War on Women' or the use of similarly outlandish rhetoric by partisan operatives has two purposes, and both are purely political in their purpose and effect: The first is to distract citizens from real issues that really matter and the second is to give talking heads something to sputter about when they appear on cable television," the Arizona senator declared.

"I believe women and men in our country are smart enough to recognize that when a politician or political party resorts to dividing us in the name of bringing us together it usually means that they are either out of ideas or short on resolve to address the challenges of our time," he added. "At this time in our nation’s history, we face an abundance of hard choices. Divisive slogans and the declaring of phony wars are intended to avoid those hard choices and to escape paying a political price for doing so."

"Women and men are no different in their rights and responsibilities," McCain concluded. "I believe this legislation recognizes that. I don’t believe the ludicrous, partisan posturing that has conjured up this imaginary war does."

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) recently explained to CNN's Candy Crowley why she thought if was fair to pin the "war on women" label on the GOP.

“The policies that have come out of the Republican Party, saying that we should have a debate again over contraception and whether we should have access to it and it should be affordable, saying that — like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, you know, he tried to quietly repeal the Equal Pay Act,” Wasserman Schultz noted. “Women aren’t going to stand for that. Governor Walker just signed a bill that repeals the equal pay law they had in Wisconsin for years.”

She continued: “You have Republicans who have engaged themselves for the entire Congress trying to redefine rape as only being forcible rape, defunding Planned Parenthood and family planning programs. The Lilly Ledbetter Act — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act put teeth behind the notion that women deserve equal pay for equal work. That was the first bill the President Obama signed into law. The overwhelming majority of Republicans serving in Congress voted against it.”

“So, the focus of the Republican Party on turning back the clock for women really is something that is unacceptable and shows how callous and insensitive they are towards women’s priorities.”

House Republicans on Wednesday introduced a watered-down version of the Violence Against Women Act that diminishes protections for Native women, lacks provisions for the LGBT community and removes added visas for undocumented victims of violence.

The law was first passed in 1994 and then reauthorized in 2000 and 2005, all by bipartisan majorities.

Vice President Joe Biden, who drafted the original bill while serving as a senator, said last week that he couldn't understand why it had now become a partisan issue.

"The idea we’re still fighting about this in Congress, that this is even a debatable issue, is truly sad," the vice president lamented.

“No one should question whether this is needed,” Biden added. “It would have been bad if the law had never been passed. But imagine now, the message it sends if it is not reauthorized. Just ask what message it would send to every one of our daughters, every woman imprisoned in their home.”

(h/t: The Huffington Post)

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Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on Sunday ripped the Republican Party for "turning back the clock for women."

During an interview on CNN, host Candy Crowley asked asked the congresswoman from Florida if it was unfair to call GOP policies a "war on women."

"The policies that have come out of the Republican Party, saying that we should have a debate again over contraception and whether we should have access to it and it should be affordable, saying that -- like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, you know, he tried to quietly repeal the Equal Pay Act," Wasserman Schultz noted. "Women aren't going to stand for that. Governor Walker just signed a bill that repeals the equal pay law they had in Wisconsin for years."

She continued: "You have Republicans who have engaged themselves for the entire Congress trying to redefine rape as only being forcible rape, defunding Planned Parenthood and family planning programs. The Lilly Ledbetter Act -- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act put teeth behind the notion that women deserve equal pay for equal work. That was the first bill the President Obama signed into law. The overwhelming majority of Republicans serving in Congress voted against it."

"So, the focus of the Republican Party on turning back the clock for women really is something that is unacceptable and shows how callous and insensitive they are towards women's priorities."

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Our friends over at News Hounds flagged this segment from Fox News with Frank Luntz and another one of his focus groups, giving Allen West some cover by playing dumb about West's recent remark that President Obama and Democratic leaders should "get the hell out of the United States."

As we've covered here at C&L, West has a long history of making inflammatory remarks, but Luntz chose to treat the one woman on the panel who was obviously aware of them as though he didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about when she brought them up, but failed herself to be specific about the things she's heard West say.

If Luntz needs a refresher, here are a few for him.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz refutes Allen West's lie that he apologized to her

Allen West thinks Obama supporters are "a threat to the gene pool"

Wingnut Allen West Slams Obama's Statesmanship While Calling Him A "Low-Level Socialist Agitator"

GOP congressional candidate Allen West tells Tea Partiers: "make the fellow scared to come out of his house"

Allen West defends 'sexist' comments by implying Democrats are racists

I'd say that Luntz should be ashamed of himself for misleading these people in this focus group and the audience at Fox, but we all already know he doesn't have any sense of shame.

Here's more from News Hounds -- Frank Luntz Runs Interference For Allen West’s divisive rhetoric. Go check out their post for a detailed description of the exchange.

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In an emotional 35 minutes in the House of Representatives today, Gabby Giffords' colleagues on both sides of the aisle bid her goodbye as her resignation takes effect.

With the notable exception of Speaker John Boehner, I don't think there was a dry eye in the house. There certainly wasn't a dry eye in this house.

I'll add the transcript as it becomes available.

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Chris Wallace might have given Reince Priebus a hard time about Republicans being the party that looks out for the rich, but he quickly made up for it by attacking President Obama and carrying some water for Mitt Romney with the GOP's favorite whipping boy of the day, the failed solar company, Solyndra. Wallace did his best to hammer home one of the Republicans favorite talking points, that President Obama was somehow the "CEO" of General Motors or of Solyndra due to the government investment in both of them and therefore personally responsible for any layoffs at either company.

As DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz rightfully pointed out it is comparing apples to oranges:

WALLACE: Let me ask you about that. Is the president responsible for laying off the people at Solyndra?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, because the president wasn't the CEO of Solyndra.

WALLACE: Well, Romney wasn't the CEO of these companies, either. The president was --

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, Romney --

WALLACE: Excuse me. The president was not a venture capitalist. He put taxpayer money into Solyndra and a thousand people lost their jobs.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: OK.

WALLACE: So is the president responsible for the thousand people who lost their jobs at Solyndra?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Not even close. But Mitt Romney is responsible for being CEO of companies that he took over. That --

WALLACE: No, he wasn't the CEO.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: He was the CEO of Bain. Bain bought these companies, took them over --

WALLACE: Well, the president is the CEO of the country.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: But he's not the CEO of Solyndra.

And it went on and on like that with Wallace continuing to conflate Romney personally profiting from taking businesses over to the government investing in solar companies. And naturally Reince Priebus got the last word and chimed in with more of his usual attacks blaming President Obama for our economic woes while his party is busy actively sabotaging the economy on purpose.

Full transcript below the fold.

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It appears Republican's obstruction and their obvious interest in only looking out for the wealthiest in America has gotten so blatant that even Fox's Chris Wallace is calling them out on it. Here he is on Fox News Sunday giving RNC Chairman Reince Priebus a hard time for how it looks to the public for Republicans to have blocked both the nominations of Elizabeth Warren and the recently recess appointed Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Priebus' response of course was to punt on the question and start attacking President Obama instead and Wallace didn't push him to ever actually give him an answer after his little rant on the recess appointment.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz got a chance to respond and pointed out that while it is true that the Democrats started these pro forma sessions to try to stop some pretty egregious George W. Bush recess appointments, they never used them to do what Republicans are doing now, which is to try to circumvent a department that was voted into law from even being capable of functioning and that Wallace's points about them protecting the wealthy were spot on.

Regardless of how things iron out in the courts over the recess appointments, it's not a good day for Republicans when even Chris Wallace is pointing out that you're looking out for the rich and don't care about protecting Americans from predatory lenders.

Transcript via Fox.

WALLACE: OK. All right. Let's Chairman Priebus -- Chairman Priebus, let's move on. We don't need to go back to the 2008 election. The president says and, you know, this is one of the lines that he's going to use in the general election -- that he is looking out for the middle class while Republicans are protecting the wealthy.

WALLACE: This week, Mr. Obama made a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Now, Chairman, I understand that the GOP has problems with this, but doesn't your party run the risk of looking like you are more concerned about protecting predatory lenders and debt collectors than you do protecting consumers?

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