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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."

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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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Chris Matthews actually tried to get a coherent response out of now ex-chairman of the astroturf FreedomWorks about why Republicans claim to be the party of small government, but they can't seem to keep themselves from inserting government into women's reproductive health or from hating on gay people and insisting that they can't get married. Armey's response was to basically fling as much poo as he could find in the direction of the other party and say "but the Democrats...":

Armey acknowledged there had been several “foolish mistakes” the GOP made during the campaign season, including Mitt Romney’s remarks about the 47%. He insisted the party was trying to “rediscover its relationship” with constitutional limitations on big government and fiscal responsibility.

Host Chris Matthews asked why, if the Republicans are really the party of limited government, does the party have its candidates trying to get rid of contraception, and outlaw gay marriage and abortion. “Why don’t you stay out of people’s lives if you really wanted limited government?” asked Matthews.

The former lawmaker insisted that there were simply a few bad apple candidates, just like the Democrats have “had a few rather strange people,” too. When Matthews pointed out the GOP platform includes items about personhood and contraception, Armey insisted the Democrats also have “unusual” and “strange” items in their platform.

“Name one,” Matthews challenged.

“Homosexual marriage, all right. Abortion on demand,” Armey shot back. “These issues are in your platform. You don’t think it’s strange for these issues to be in your platform pointing in one direction, but you consider it outrageous that the other party has the same issues pointing in the another direction in their platform.”

Matthews responded, “The Democratic party generally supports Roe vs. Wade. It does not support ‘abortion on demand,’” adding the issue of gay marriage is going to be decided state by state, not nationally.

Matthews tried to get Armey to dish on FreedomWorks a bit more, now that he's taken the $8 million golden parachute of a retirement they paid so they could be rid of him, but Armey didn't have much to say on that front and was still trying to pretend that they're some grassroots movement -- and not a rebranding effort to get the Bush-stink off the word Republican. Driftglass has more on that and Dick Armey from back in 2010 here.

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Fox's Andrea Tantaros, who recently made jokes about living off of the food stamp program as a dieting technique, actually had the gall to attack Sandra Fluke as a "terrible person to elevate" after Fluke's nomination by Time for Person of the Year.

Of course, attacking Fluke is nothing new for Tantaros, who went after her this August as well, saying that "no woman should aspire to be" Sandra Fluke.

And now that Fluke has received her nomination, Tantaros isn't the only one over at Fox or in the right wing media going after her -- Right-Wing Media Launch Attacks After Sandra Fluke Nominated For Time "Person Of The Year" .

Tantaros continued the tradition of lying completely about Fluke and what she was advocating for and after watching this I can say one thing. Fox and their Republican allies don't look like they learned a damned thing from the losses they just took among women during the last election. Keep it up wingnuts.

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Scarce edit: If you'd like to vote for Sandra Fluke you can do so at this link:

Sandra Fluke as Time's Person of the Year

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From this Sunday's This Week, apparently George Will believes women aren't capable of worrying about more than one topic at a time and doesn't realize that it's the likes of him pretending that women's ability to control their own contraception is not an economic issue as well as a health issue is what's really offensive to "educated" women.

WILL: There has been a big change. It's not a particular state. It's the change in Romney's gain among women. And that, I think, represents a huge recoil by professional women with college degrees against the condescension of the Obama campaign, which says -- Austan, hang on -- which says, essentially, don't you trouble your pretty little heads about these men's issue like unemployment and all the rest. Worry about contraception, which has been a constitutional right for 47 years. It's a distraction, the entire war on women trope, and I think professional, educated women find it offensive.

Here's more from Media Matters on why he's so dangerously wrong as well -- George Will Dismisses Romney's Anti-Women's Rights Stances:

While it is true that the Supreme Court ruled in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut that state governments cannot ban access to contraception, Mitt Romney supports the Blunt Amendment, legislation that would allow business owners to withdraw insurance coverage for contraception or any other medical treatment.

Moreover, Clarence Thomas, one of the justices that Romney has said will serve as a model for his judicial nominations, has said that he agreed with the dissenting judge in Griswold, who said that contraception bans are constitutionally valid.

In addition to his stance on contraception, Romney has said that he would appoint Supreme Court justices that would likely try to overturn the court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision -- a goal Romney has had since at least 2007. Appointing anti-Roe v. Wade judges to the Supreme Court could have drastic consequences. According to Tony Mauro of USA Today: "If a President Romney gets to appoint replacements for liberals Ginsburg and Breyer, then abortion rights, gay rights, affirmative action and campaign-finance reform could well be in serious jeopardy." Romney has also reportedly opposed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which provides women more legal room to file pay discrimination claims against employers.

The Roe v. Wade decision awarded women a fundamental right in 1973, which Romney has repeatedly promised to revoke, calling it "one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history." To George Will and other conservative media, women's rights remain a "distraction."

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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio did his best to try to spin the fact that Mitt Romney has consistently had some really extreme stances on birth control and the availability of contraception and on abortion for some time now on this Sunday's Meet the Press. He also tried to whitewash just who would be allowed to discriminate and refuse to cover the cost of contraception if the Blunt Amendment, which Romney supported, had passed.

Rubio Develops ‘Romnesia’ While Trying To Explain Romney’s Position On Contraception:

Last week, President Obama joked that some Romney surrogates are suffering from “Romnesia” — an ability to forget the candidate’s old positions on major campaign issues, in favor of his new positions. On Sunday, during an appearance on Meet The Press, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was presenting severe symptoms of that condition, spending a good portion of his interview trying to explain how Romney’s stances on contraception and abortion have not changed and ignoring the campaign’s efforts to to obscure Romney’s record on women’s health issues.

For instance, Rubio tried to sweep under the rug Romney’s support of the Blunt Amendment, a measure that would have allowed employers with “moral objections” to deny contraception coverage to their female employees. He also refused to say if Romney would “sign a bill that banned abortion,” as the former Massachusetts governor had promised during a GOP primary debate in 2007 [...]

Not only would the Blunt Amendment prevent women from gaining access to abortion, but Romney has also pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act writ large. Doing so, would eliminate provisions that require insurers and employers to offer contraception coverage without additional co-pays. Romney’s pledge to defund Planned Parenthood would also significantly weaken women’s access to affordable contraception. Romney and Paul Ryan have both supported personhood amendments — on the state or federal level — that would outlaw all abortion, as well as some forms of contraception and in vitro fertilization.

Nothing to see here you silly women. Let's move along now and talk about the economy. It seems Rubio was determined not to have ABC's This Week be the only show where he helped Mittens alienate female voters just before the election this Sunday.

Full transcript below the fold.

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After Anderson Cooper took his audience through some of Mitt Romney's revolving positions on the issue of abortion and access to contraception and the fact that there are some recent polls again showing that Mitt Romney is having trouble with women voters in swing states, Romney surrogate Bay Buchanan tied herself in knots trying to explain and defend Willard's flip flopping on the issue.

As much as I really detest Buchanan for her demeanor and just being really mean, nasty and aggressive with anyone unfortunate enough to appear on the air at the same time she does, I have to say, I don't envy her or any of the rest of the right wing pundits out there who have the unenviable task of trying to explain to the voters why Romney has had every position imaginable on the abortion issue and how women are not supposed to worry about who he might appoint to the Supreme Court.

Neera Tanden did pretty well holding her own with her, even though Buchanan did her best to bully her way through the interview and filibuster as much as Cooper would let her get away with it. The fact of the matter is that Mitt Romney has said he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which means rolling back the contraceptive coverage along with a lot of other benefits that everyone is now receiving. He has said he wants to appoint judges who would reverse Roe v. Wade. And Romney has proven during this primary process that he's beholden to the right wing of his party and he's not going to buck their will with what he's willing to either sign or veto if we're unfortunate enough to have him elected as president.

It's also a shame no one called Buchanan out when she tried to claim that making insurance companies pay for birth control is not having the "government" pay for contraception. That's a lie they're allowed to get away with way too often with no rebuttal. As Tanden did manage to point out on the issue, you don't really have access to something if you can't afford either the doctors' appointments or the prescriptions, and that's exactly what would happen under the policies Romney now claims he supports.

And Buchanan's lame defense that birth control has "been out there since the 1950s" is utterly ridiculous and meaningless. If it's only "out there" for the wealthy and upper middle class and not the poor, that doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot for a good part of the population that would also like to have some control over their own reproductive health.

Transcript below the fold.

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I thought one of President Obama's better moments during the debate this week was when he pointed out that access to affordable contraception was not only a health issue for women, but an economic issue as well. During some of that exchange, Mitt Romney once again attempted to obscure his opposition to the Affordable Care Act's contraception coverage mandate and the following day, had one of his surrogates out there claiming that women don't really care about access to affordable contraception and calling it a "peripheral" issue."

As Steve Benen noted, we've seen this act before back in April when Gov. Nikki Haley was out there claiming that women don't care about contraception as well, and this Wednesday, we were treated to round two of this nonsense -- Birth control is not a 'hypothetical situation':

Kerry Healey, Romney's lieutenant governor in Massachusetts, fresh off her borderline-comical turn in the post-debate spin room last night, sat down with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell today, and the host asked questions Healey presumably expected, noting Romney's support for the Blunt Amendment, for example.

Inexplicably, the Romney surrogate described the consequences of the candidate's own proposals as "some hypothetical situation." Healey added that even having a discussion about women being able to afford contraception is a "peripheral" issue.

This arrogant attitude is extraordinary. Under Romney's preferred agenda, employers can end contraception coverage for their women employees, and millions of Americans would no longer be able to afford birth control.

Asked to defend this right-wing nonsense, the Romney campaign's defense is that the question is irrelevant -- as if the issue is so trivial, it's not even worth their time.

If this is Team Romney's attempt to appear in touch with the needs of working families, it's likely to backfire.

Postscript: On a related note, Ed Gillespie said he was "wrong" last night to explain that Romney opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. For those keeping score at home, the Romney campaign, over the course of less than a day, has had no position on the law, been opposed to the law, and then supportive of the law.

As Nicole noted in her post about Nikki Haley:

And if by some chance I ignored all good sense and did the things above, when asked to proffer up proof that there isn't a war on women's rights within the GOP, I sure as hell wouldn't be stupid enough to say, "Well, women don't care about contraception."

The Romney campaign doesn't seem to have learned any lessons from what this did to them in the polls with women earlier this year.

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From this Thursday evening's Hardball pre-debate and some of the post-debate coverage, Rep. Marsha Blackburn came on initially to field a few questions, playing the part of Paul Ryan for Chris Matthews, with her fellow House member Rep. John Yarmuth taking some questions that Joe Biden might be asked, and par for the course, Blackburn managed to throw a few whoppers out there.

She apparently wants Americans to believe that Republicans are now concerned about making everyone has health care coverage, even though they've repeatedly attempted to overturn the health care law that was initially their own party's response to Hillary-care and their own presidential candidate's plan in Massachusetts.

She also completely punted when Matthews attempted to pin her down on Paul Ryan's stance on this "fetal personhood" legislation that he and his side of the aisle have tried to push forward. She instead went into full attack mode on President Obama over and his policies and just kept repeating that she believes life begins at conception.

I hate to break it to the Congresswoman, but women who don't want to see their birth control pills outlawed, or those, like at least one of Mitt Romney's sons and daughter in laws, who used in vitro fertilization to get pregnant, might want a few more specifics on this topic and not just empty platitudes as we received here.

She apparently decided she hadn't had enough abuse yet on the network and came back on there post-debate, and Matthews hit her this time around for being another one of the Jack Welch, Donald Trump, job report truthers crowd.

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After a week where a good deal of the featured speakers at the 2012 Democratic National Convention had Bill O'Reilly's head ready to explode on a regular basis, Bill-O decided to sound off in his Talking Points Memo this Monday evening on Fox, and go after them one by one and charge them with being "left wing loons" and extremists. I guess "extremism" is on the eye of the beholder.

O'Reilly really is a disgusting piece of work. He's never taken an ounce of responsibility for the murder he helped provoke of Dr. George Tiller. And he continues to this day to go on the air week after week and demonize and dehumanize those he disagrees with, lying all the way and distorting their words and what they stand for.

If O'Reilly wanted to have an honest discussion on policy and disagreements there, that would be one thing, but you can't do that when one side has created an alternative reality with no basis in facts. It's much easier to fling garbage at those you don't like and and name call than to try to defend the indefensible, so that's what we got from O'Reilly. Sandra Fluke isn't asking for the government to pay for birth control. Peggy Noonan should be the last person to call someone a "ninny, a narcissist, and a fool." Caroline Kennedy hasn't embarrassed anyone. And President Obama has not "embraced the radical" anything. But that's not going to stop O'Reilly from telling his audience just that.

Transcript below the fold.

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