Update: Obama Administration has appealed. Responding to a court order the Obama Administration begrudgingly approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B or “the morning after pill” to ages 15 and up. But the court order required all ages to have access to the medicine. The Obama administration on Tuesday approved over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill [...]

By now, you’ve probably heard about Akin II: The Re-Akining, the comments of Republican Senate candidate from Indiana Richard Mourdock, talking about abortion and rape at a debate. Who knows why a Republican sees the words “abortion” and “rape” at this point and thinks “Let me try to work up a talking point here,” but [...]

Yesterday was the final day that Todd Akin could take himself off the Missouri Senate ballot. But I think the national Republicans who desperately wanted this to happen gave up on the idea long ago. Clearly Akin marches to his own beat, and wouldn’t be swayed even by the cutoff of funds. Some conservative movement [...]

Today, a series of new health insurance regulations under the Affordable Care Act go into effect, in particular the free (i.e., no co-pay) preventive services for women’s health. And both the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress are in the midst of a full-court press to let everyone know about it. Here’s Kathleen Sebelius and [...]

By now you’ve probably heard about Michigan State Reps. Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum, who were blocked from speaking on the floor of the legislature because of comments like Brown’s “I’m flattered you’re all so concerned about my vagina, but no means no” at the end of a debate on an abortion bill. Byrum used [...]

Today the Senate will hold a test vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would update The Equal Pay Act of 1963. The President swooped in at the last minute to push for the bill’s passage, or really just to highlight the messaging. Senators will vote whether to debate the Democratic-sponsored Paycheck Fairness Act, a [...]

I’ll get to the Rachel Maddow clip in a bit. Here is how you make America dumber, one Sunday at a time. First you show a clip of some politician making a speech. You then have a CNN (or ABC, CBS, NBC) panelist critique a segment of the speech, but do it in a misleading [...]

Today the House votes on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. This reauthorization has already passed the Senate with 68 votes, but the House version cancelled several protections Senate Democrats added, to apply domestic violence protections to Native Americans, undocumented immigrants and LGBT families. This has drawn a veto threat from the White House, a [...]

With the general election kicking off yesterday, we will have seven more months of the kind of “I know you are but what am I” politics we saw on display yesterday. It’s almost too depressing to even contemplate. Mr. Romney fought back on his preferred turf, jobs and the economy, making the case that women [...]

Showing great political acumen less than two months before a recall election where women are eligible to vote, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker just repealed the state’s equal-pay law. A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker [...]

The backlash to the war on women continues. This week, an Idaho bill that would have mandated ultrasounds for abortion seekers died in the legislature, a victory for women’s rights in one of the most conservative states in the nation. But the backlash is also getting an assist from a district court in Oklahoma: An [...]