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Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday said that the Obama administration "empowers men who want to abuse women" by complying with a court order to allow over-the-counter emergency contraception sales to women and girls of any age.

"It's a good deal for pedophiles, a good deal for people who commit statutory rape against young girls," Ingraham told Fox News. "If mothers and fathers across this country hear this and they think, 'Well, I guess my daughter or her boyfriend or her rapist can go out to a pharmacy and get a bunch of, you know, hormone pills to give a little girl.' We don't really know the effect of a spiking or dropping a little girl's -- in many cases a young woman's or a little girl's hormonal levels. It's outrageous!"

"These girls can't get their ears pierced, they can't take an Advil at school without parental permission. Yet, they can go into a pharmacy in this Brave New World of women's equality and -- quote -- reproductive health and get a morning after pill."

Ingraham added: "I think it empowers men who want to abuse women."

(h/t: Media Matters)

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A regular Fox News commentator on Sunday said that teen pregnancies should be "celebrated," and pointed to President Barack Obama's speech to Planned Parenthood and the alleged horrific crimes of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell as part of "what’s wrong with our culture."

Fortune magazine's Nina Easton told Fox News host Chris Wallace that the Obama administration was in a "tough spot" after a federal judge ruled that women of all ages should have access to emergency contraception like the Plan B morning-after pill, even though the Food and Drug Administration had previously tried to limit access for girls younger than 15.

"I do think there’s a case to be made for conservatives or anybody who cares about the rate of abortions in this country to deregulate birth control more, although I also understand a need for parents to be involved," Easton explained. "One of the things out of all of this news, including the president’s speech to Planned Parenthood and this Gosnell case of murdering babies, is we’re looking at a culture that produces 1.2 million abortions a year. We’re losing sight of that fact."

"I would say that in addition to deregulating birth control, another thing we need to do is celebrate young women who bring a baby to term and find an adoptive parent," she opined. "There’s such a stigma today to being an adoptive birth mom that you’re more willing to admit that you’ve had an abortion than that you are delivering a healthy newborn to a loving family."

"What’s wrong with our culture that that’s where we are today?"

Think Progress' Aviva Shen observed on Sunday that Easton had "offered up Obama’s speech to Planned Parenthood and the Gosnell trial as evidence of how young women who choose to carry babies to term for adoption are being stigmatized."

"Easton glosses over the difficulty involved in maintaining a normal life for 9 months as a pregnant teenager," Shen wrote. "Moreover, birthmothers under 17 are more likely to change their minds about the adoption and keep the baby, making them vulnerable to dropping out of high school and a permanent cycle of poverty that entraps the majority of teen moms."

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Republican strategist Brad Blakeman on Friday said that President Barack Obama was complicit in encouraging criminal activity because he supported contraception for young women.

Last month, a federal judge ordered the Obama administration to make emergency contraception available to girls as young as 15 without a prescription. The Justice Department vowed to appeal the ruling, but the president on Thursday told reporters in Mexico that he was "comfortable" with giving girls access to the morning-after pill.

"This makes no sense at all," Blakeman opined to Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Friday. "You have to be 18 years old to buy a pack of cigarettes. And the president is also encouraging criminal behavior because in most jurisdictions in America, engaging in sexual intercourse at 14, 15 years old is statutory rape. So the president is somehow saying, 'If you engage in that activity -- criminal behavior -- that's okay because the government is going to provide you the out for your bad decision making.'"

Left-leaning Fox News contributor Julie Rodinsky, however, was more realistic, pointing out that "15 year olds and people who are older do have sex, and if they do have sex, isn't the whole point here to prevent them from getting pregnant? And this is the best way to prevent conception. This is not an abortion pill."

Continue reading »

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If anyone didn't think the Obama administration's position on Plan B wasn't quite bad enough, where they've played politics with the issue, saying they'd lower the age on the emergency contraception to 15, in violation of a court order that the drug be made available with no age restriction -- behold what the viewers at Faux "News" were being treated to this Thursday.

Media Matters flagged this segment from Fox's The Five and their title pretty well sums up the arguments being made, not only by Bolling, but the other hosts as well: Fox's Bolling: Lowering Age For Plan B Access "May Be Covering Up Rapes That Girls Are Embarrassed To Talk About".

Yes, because it would be so much better to up the odds of them becoming pregnant as well. And someone needs to let them know that rape victims are already administered this drug if they go to the hospital.

For a group that claims to care about abortion, they sure as hell don't mind advocating for policies that will assure there are more of them.

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And we await the "social conservatives" heads exploding over this in 10... 9... Judge Rules Emergency Contraception Should Be Available To All Women Over The Counter:

In a victory for birth control access, a U.S. federal judge has ordered the Food and Drug Administration to remove the current restrictions on the morning after pill, commonly known as “Plan B.” Even though the FDA initially recommended that Plan B should be available without a prescription for women of all ages, the Obama Administration overruled that decision in 2011 to restrict access to emergency contraception for those under the age of 17. On Friday, citing the administration’s unnecessary “political interference” in the matter, Judge Edward R. Korman ordered the federal agency to reverse that decision.

Korman — a Reagan-appointed judge — determined that there’s no reason to prevent teens from purchasing Plan B over the counter, pointing out that the morning after pill is “among the safest drugs sold over the counter.” The judge also criticized HHS’s decision to overrule the FDA, explaining that “many public health experts saw as a politically-motivated effort to avoid riling religious groups and others opposed to making birth control available to girls.” Read on...

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Here we go again with Lindsey Graham continuing to threaten to use the debt ceiling to inflict pain on the working class, or as he calls it, "saving Social Security and Medicare." Graham made this exact same threat almost a year ago where he was a little more specific about his plans for our social safety nets.

Lindsey Graham: Don't Allow Debt Ceiling to Be Raised Without Cuts and Means Testing for Social Security

Here he was on the same show, Meet the Press, again telling David Gregory that we should risk the full faith and credit of the United States of America if Democrats won't give him his pound of flesh from our senior citizens:

GREGORY: Sen. Graham, the question for you is could you vote for a bill that extended tax cuts for $250 thousand and below, extended unemployment insurance as the President wants to do and in some way delays some of these automatic spending cuts? Could you vote for that in the short term?

GRAHAM: No. If you want leaders, then you have to lead and the President's been a pathetic fiscal leader. He's produced three budgets and can't get one vote for any of his budgets. You know, Boehner will be Tip O'Neill. Obama needs to be Ronald Reagan and here's what I would vote for. I would vote for revenues, including tax rate hikes, even though I don't like them to get a... to save the country from becoming Greece.

But I'm not going to set aside the $1.2 trillion in cuts. Any hope of going over the fiscal cliff must start in the Senate. Not one Democrat would support the idea that we could protect 99 percent of Americans from a tax increase. Boehner's Plan B I thought made sense. To my Republican colleagues, the Ronald Reagan model is that if you get 80 percent of what you want, that's a pretty good day. We have the same objective of lowering taxes. I like Simpson-Bowles. Eliminate deductions, lower rates, put money on the debt. Tax rate hikes are a partisan solution driven by the President, but he's going to get tax rate hikes. […]

There will not be a big deal. The big chance for a big deal is with the debt ceiling. That's when we will have leverage to turn the country around, prevent it from becoming Greece and save Social Security and Medicare. And anybody listening to this program, I will raise the debt ceiling only if we save Medicare and Social Security from insolvency and prevent this country from becoming Greece. No more borrowing without addressing why we're in debt to begin with. That's where the real chance for change occurs, at the debt ceiling debate.

Chuck Schumer responded by reminding the viewers just how reckless Graham's remarks are and by reiterating that President Obama is not going to allow what happened the last time around to happen again. That apparently has had zero affect on Graham who is still going to go out there and stomp his feet and make ridiculous comparisons to Greece to try to scare the public, when the ones they ought to be afraid of are Graham and his fellow Republicans who are determined to continue to destroy what's left of the middle class in America and to shred every one of our social safety nets for the most vulnerable among us.

Graham feigns concern over the budget deficit now, but he never has those same concerns back when Bush was blowing mile wide holes in it with tax cuts for the rich and invading a couple of countries which he refused to put on the books. Graham's solutions never seem to include any military spending, since that's apparently the only jobs program that Republicans like -- putting military contractors to work.

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From TPM: Boehner Calls Off Plan B Vote:

In a stunning defeat, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called off a vote Thursday night on his Plan B to avert the fiscal cliff, citing a lack of support from his own party. Boehner issued the following statement as an emergency meeting of the House Republican Conference was ending:

The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass. Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff. The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the January 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation's crippling debt. The Senate must now act.

This might not be good news for John Boehner, but as John already noted here, he's looking like Santa Claus for progressives.

And here's Eric Cantor's "walk of shame" leaving the House after "Plan B" went down in flames.

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[Scarce edit: A little musical soundtrack seemed in order. Music by Screen Team, a parody of Awolnation's "Sail".]

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As Think Progress noted, after complaining and fearmongering about the mandate that will require insurance companies to cover the cost of contraceptives at no cost, and lying and calling emergency contraception "an abortion pill," which it's not, now he going to be fundraising with the drug manufacturer's chairman.

Romney To Fundraise With Plan B Maker Despite Denouncing Emergency Contraception As ‘Abortive Pills’:

In particular, Romney denounced the fact that insurance plans would now be required to cover Plan B, a form of emergency contraception that he falsely referred to on numerous occasions as “abortive pills.” This is what Romney said in Colorado on February 6, 2012:

ROMNEY: This same administration said that the churches and the institutions they run, such as schools and let’s say adoption agencies, hospitals, that they have to provide for their employees free of charge, contraceptives, morning after pills, in other words abortive pills, and the like at no cost. Think what that does to people in faiths that do not share those views. This is a violation of conscience.

(Plan B works just like regular birth control pills and is not, in fact, an abortifacient.)

The Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo reports that next week the Romney campaign will be doing a major fundraising blitz across Florida, including an event “at the Star Island manse of pharmaceutical magnate Phil and Pat Frost where dinner costs $50,000.”

As they also noted in their post, this is not the first time he's done this. Go read the post for the rest of the list. And as they reported, here's more on the campaign's response:

Bloomberg News reports that the Romney campaign refused to comment on this story:

Romney’s campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, didn’t respond to a request for comment on how the candidate, who opposes abortion rights, could accept support from the maker of “abortive pills.”

The list of Mitt Romney's lies, contradictions, flip flops and obfuscations just grows longer and longer each day. I'm happy to see that Al Sharpton covered this topic on his show this Tuesday since it hasn't gotten a lot of airplay anywhere else that I've seen, but he should have noted that Romney was lying about Plan B being an "abortion pill." He failed to point that out in the segment above.

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Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says he's had it with President Barack Obama "respecting every other religion on the planet," and thinks it's time for him to "respect our religion" instead.

At a campaign event in Florida on Monday, Gingrich seized on letters read at Catholic Churches across the U.S. that condemned the Obama administration for making birth control more available to women.

"Callista and I were at mass last night, and I believe at every Catholic Church, they are reading a letter about the Obama administration's attack on Christianity," Gingrich explained. "This is a fundamental assault on the freedom of religion. ... If you help me win the nomination and then you help me win the election, on the very first day I'm inaugurated, I will sign an executive order repealing every Obama attack on religion across the entire government."

"I think we need to have a government that respects our religions," he added. "I'm a little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every other religion on the planet. I'd like him to respect our religion."

While he was at it, Gingrich also charged that the current Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, had waged his own war on religion.

"Gov. Romney imposed on the Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, a position against their conscious," he said, possibly referring to the misleading claim that Romney supported government-subsidized abortions. He could have also been referencing a decision the former Massachusetts governor made to provide the Plan B birth control pill under Medicaid.

"Gov. Romney cut off Kosher meals for Jewish senior citizens who were on Medicaid to save $5 a day," Gingrich continued.

The New York Post reported last week that that Romney had used his veto in 2003 to reject $600,000 in funds that would have allowed poor Jewish nursing homes to get Kosher meals.

(H/T: Think Progress)

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From our friends at Newshounds, Mike Huckabee treated his viewers to this lie-packed bit of anti-abortion propaganda on this weekend's edition of Huckabee on Fox News. The forced birth crowd over there is determined to keep the culture wars going with their war on women's reproductive rights.

It's downright infuriating that the Obama administration and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave them some food for fodder with this one.

Mike Huckabee Lies About "Plan" B While Pimping Anti-Abortion Movie:

As the mouthpiece for the rabid political right, it's not surprising that Fox News is America's pro-life newsroom. You won't see Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood on Fox; but you will see Fox hosts and guests who hate women's reproductive freedom. Fox can be proud of how its top rated Bill O'Reilly contributed to a climate of fear and hatred in which abortion doctor, George Tiller, was assassinated. Bill also did his pro-life duty in presenting a parade of guests who support congressional attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. But while Bill and the other Fox pundits don't seem to, outside Fox, take an anti-abortion activist role, there is one Fox pundit who does and that's Mike Huckabee. He's up to his eyeballs with the "pro-family" anti-women's reproductive rights crowd that wants to provide "personhood" rights from the moment of conception. Mike, who "proudly stands" with homophobic and anti-Islamic hate group leader Bryon Fischer of the American Family Association, lauded the failed Mississippi personhood initiative. And now, he's promoting an anti-abortion rights movie for whih he provides an introduction. In a shameless act of self-promotion and anti-choice activism, Huckabee used his latest show to pimp the movie while telling a shamelss lie about the emergency contraception "Plan B." If Fox viewers are misinformed, this is why.

After telling a folksy story about how he "told" his little grandchild about how he would vote for people who would "protect little guys like him before and after he was born," Huckabee segued into his upcoming forum in Iowa which will include the premier of a new anti-abortion film, "The Gift of Life." After he described the film as "refreshing and uplifting," he asserted that this film will remind candidates and voters that "treating every human with worth and dignity is still essential in selecting a leader." This reverence for life, Hucakbee asserted, is even more important since the FDA recommend that over the counter sale "of a drug that kills a developing baby." He noted that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius is continuing the policy of requiring girls to be 17 if they are "purchasing this what has been termed abortion in a bottle." (He didn't say that a doctor could still prescribe the drug to these girls.) He then went into the standard "pro-life" canard that girls need parental consent to take an aspirin at a school. (A girl of any age can purchase aspirin at a drug store). He continued with the anti-abortion misinformation with a comment about how the government "was on the brink of letting her purchase a pill that will kill her unborn child with neither your consent nor your approval."

Go read the rest, but as they noted, that movie Huck was pimping was brought to us by none other than Citizens United, the same group that led to the disastrous Supreme Court ruling that's made the money pouring into our political coffers from corporations that want to buy off our politicians even worse. Lovely.