Carcano decided to tell her story publicly for the first time after reading here about the Peace Corps Equity Act, introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg last week, which would modify the current policy by extending Peace Corps health coverage to abortions in case of rape. Carcano, who is now working as a research assistant on HIV/AIDS, says she wasn't particularly educated about the politics of abortion. But then, in the months after her ordeal, the headlines were full of politicians talking about abortion, "legitimate rape" and doubting rape victims could even become pregnant. "I came back to my country and I felt like other Americans were against me or against my choices," she says.

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"Of course you regret it," he said in the interview. "You think, what it would have been like if I hadn't done that."

Akin also took the opportunity to make a dig at Karl Rove, whose Super PAC American Crossroads launched a new project to make sure that another candidate like Akin doesn't win the Republican primary, only to prove unelectable in the general election. "Karl Rove has made himself an expert," Akin said. "I think I lost one race. He managed to lose about 12 of them in one night."

Watch:

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Ryan Grim from the Huffington Post reports:

Only retiring Democrat Gary Ackerman of New York was more generous with public money, barely topping Akin's 98 percent increase in pay, the website shows. Allen West, a Tea Party favorite from South Florida, was the fourth biggest giver of taxpayer bonuses after he lost reelection to Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.). Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) was the third most generous, according to LegiStorm.

West and Akin routinely decried wasteful and out-of-control government spending, calling for major cuts to social programs.

The numbers were taken from LegiStorm, a website that tracks congressional salaries. The site also shows that nine out of  the 10 House members who gave out the biggest bonuses were Republicans, while 14 of the top 20 were outgoing members of Congress.

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“I made a very awkward attempt to explain the unexplainable,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Rape is rape," he continued. "If it’s rape, it’s legitimate. I certainly regret very much weighing in on that issue, which was something that was already pretty much roundly condemned and criticized. I felt so badly about it, because my profession is treating women."

From the AJC:

Gingrey said he has had conversations with James Breeden, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “We went over articles and more recent journals,” the congressman said.

“Whereas Todd said the panic would cause a body to shut down and prevent ovulation, more recent data suggests just the opposite is probably true,” the physician-congressman said. Adrenaline is more likely to spur ovulation, he said.

“So you learn,” Gingrey said.

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Politico reports:

The Republican primary for the open Senate seat in Georgia is shaping up to be a free-for-all, drawing interest from some of the most conservative members of the House and raising concerns that a race to the right could put in play what should be a safe seat. It comes as the party tries to head off the problem that cost it dearly in 2012: nominating candidates who say things so off-putting to mainstream voters that they blow the election.

Democrats acknowledge that Georgia’s rightward tilt gives Republicans the edge in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. But they’re hopeful that a candidate in the mold of Missouri’s Akin or Indiana’s Richard Mourdock emerges from a bare-knuckled Southern brawl.

So who are the potential candidates?

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During the past two cycles, flawed candidates such as Akin, the former Missouri congressman who lost a targeted Senate race, helped derail the GOP’s hopes of winning a Senate majority. Costly primaries produced ineffective general-election nominees, costing the NRSC five otherwise-winnable races since 2010.

While candidate control is often beyond the NRSC’s abilities, the committee will ultimately be judged on whether the party can avoid such troubles and pick up the six seats needed for a majority in 2014.

“The campaigns that jumped off message not only infected themselves, they infected all the rest of the campaigns,” Rob Collins, the new executive director of the NRSC, told Roll Call. “So in this age of fractured but continuous, three-dimensional communication, we have to constantly plan for that and train for that and build for that.”

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"Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it's an act of violence, because the body is traumatized. I don't know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through," she told the newspaper before arriving at the state GOP's spring convention in Sacramento.

Ironically, she got on the subject while criticizing Rep. Todd Akin, the former Missouri Senate candidate who infamously said women's bodies have a way of shutting down pregnancies in the case of "legitimate rape." "That was an insensitive remark," Greig said. "I'm sure he regretted it. He should have come back and apologized." Greig, however, went on to essentially reaffirm part of Akin's logic.

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King hasn’t announced yet, but has said he’s leaning toward a run. It’s enough to concern Steve Law, the president of the Karl Rove-affiliated American Crossroads, which has made it its mission to help non-Tea Party Republicans win GOP primaries. "We're concerned about Steve King's Todd Akin problem," Law told the New York Times. "This is an example of candidate discipline and how it would play in a general election. All of the things he's said are going to be hung around his neck."

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Akin was responding to the Conservative Victory Project, an effort by Crossroads to fund mainstream Republicans in primary races to ensure that unelectable conservatives, like Akin, don't make it to the general election.

Akin added that the Conservative Victory Project is a "misleading" name, and the group “is trying to get rid of conservatives, which is very thinly disguised."

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“This is not Tea Party versus the establishment,” Rove said on Fox News. “I don’t want a fight.”

"Some people think the best we can do is Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. They’re wrong. We need to do better if we hope to take over the United States Senate. We need to get better conservative candidates and win," he continued.

Watch:

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In an effort to avoid a repeat of this in 2014, establishment Republicans have begun an effort to recruit more pliable candidates—ones who won’t sink GOP odds with ill-considered words on rape and women’s health. According to The New York Times, the “Conservative Victory Project” is “intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.”

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“They are welcome to support the likes of Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist and David Dewhurst,” Barney Keller, the spokesman for the Club for Growth, told Politico on Sunday.  “We will continue to proudly support the likes of Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.”

This points to an open question about the new Rove effort, which is being called the Conservative Victory Project: What criteria will it use to determine who is and isn’t electable?

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Daming Sanusi, a candidate for the Indonesian Supreme Court, has sparked widespread outrage by suggesting that rape victims "enjoy" being sexually assaulted.

In front of a parliamentary commission hearing to determine if he was fit for the high court, Sanusi was asked whether he believed the death penalty should be applied in rape cases. His response? "Consideration needs to be taken thoroughly for the imposition of death penalty for a rapist because in a rape case both the rapist and the victim enjoy it," CNN reported.

And why did he say something so colossally stupid?

He was nervous and wanted to "break the ice" with a "joke": "I made the remark without realizing it can harm people's feeling," Antara, the Indonesian news agency, quoted him as saying.

News of Sanusi's comments spread quickly through social media, prompting calls for officials to dismiss his candidacy.

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Last week, Gingrey offered a partial defense of Todd Akin's comments about "legitimate rape"and women's bodies being able to shut down pregnancies, telling the Marietta Daily Journal that Akin was "partly right" on that score:

"I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he?"

Gingrey is currently the Chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus, has been Ranking Member of the Science Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, and, like Akin, previously served on the House Science Committee. 

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This year, only a few days into 2013, a Republican has spouted off about women lying about rape and our bodies shutting down pregnancy. States are at it again, and the House has kicked off the legislative session by trying to defund Planned Parenthood.

Happy new year, everyone: The  GOP soul-searching is over, and Republicans are back to square one on reproductive rights.

Today's congressman seeing to add his name to the illustrious rape-explaining pantheon is Georgia Republican Phil Gingrey, one of several antiabortion gynecologists serving in the House. “Part of the reason the Dems still control the Senate is because of comments made in Missouri by Todd Akin and Indiana by Mourdock were considered a little bit over the top,” Gingrey explained at a recent breakfast.

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McCorvey wasn't interviewed for Joshua Prager's profile. "I almost forgot i have a one thousand dollar fee," she texted him when he requested to speak to her. And when he declined to pay, she replied, "Then we wont speak." Why should she, when being Jane Roe has been her job? It's a job that has exasperated pro-choice activists and been exploited by the far right. Just last summer, "legitimate rape" expert Todd Akin erroneously cited her example as "false claims like those made in Roe v. Wade."

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During the year, 19 states enacted 43 provisions to restrict access to abortion services, whether mandating invasive ultrasounds, blocking health insurance coverage, shuttering women's health clinics or limiting access to the morning-after pill and contraception. The record for most restrictions was set in 2011 with 92.

The worst offenders? Arizona ranked No. 1, enacting seven antiabortion restrictions, and Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin followed close behind with at least three restrictions each.

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From The Washington Post:

The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall.

Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was gone — with a promise of $8 million — and the five ousted employees were back. The force behind their return was Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who has exerted increasing control over one of Washington’s most influential conservative grass-roots organizations.

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Akin added a provision to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act that would create a "conscience clause" for members of the military, essentially allowing them to cite their religious beliefs as cover for discriminating against gay and lesbian service members.

Akin's proposal was passed by the House in May with the rest of the NDAA, but it was dropped out of the Senate's version of the bill, which passed earlier this month. But now the bill is back in conference, and Republicans are reportedly pushing to put Akin's amendment back in.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., both of whom vehemently opposed the DADT repeal, are negotiating the conference, and are "pushing pretty hard" to get Akin's provision back in, according to a House Democratic aide, who spoke with Mother Jones.

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones reports:

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