This is both less and more outrageous than it sounds, and gets to a legal problem beyond the disturbing particulars of this case: whether consent under false pretenses is consent at all.

Before anger rains down solely on the three-judge panel from California's court of appeals, let's be clear here: One, the prosecutor screwed up by misapplying California's rape laws, and two, California's 19th-century rape laws still on the books are partly to blame. Still, the judges chose to interpret the law as strictly as possible, reversing the entire conviction and instructing the court to retry the case on a more limited basis.

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Seizing on recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that some hormonal birth control be available over the counter, the Louisiana governor and presumed presidential hopeful seeks to play them against the Affordable Care Act. He claims that Obama's big government is actually making it harder for women to access birth control, despite the fact that the ACOG recommendations would work best in tandem with the Affordable Care Act birth control provisions, not instead of them.

Making birth control more accessible in any way possible is generally a good idea. But in Jindal's haste to find "the end of birth control politics," he ignores some crucial benefits of the Affordable Care Act as well as the deep-seated opposition to many forms of birth control, not just insurance coverage of it, among his own allies.

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In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Jindal tried to put an anti-big-government spin on his position, while also moving away from the social conservative wing of the party and addressing a gender gap which hurt Mitt Romney and likely cost Republicans Senate seats in Indiana and Missouri.

Jindal wrote that Republicans have been "stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue," while embracing the  American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists call for over-the-counter sales and seeking to push the issue out of the "political arena.

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Too bad his home state didn't get the memo.

Less than 24 hours later, the Arizona Department of Health Services launched "A Woman's Right to Know," an informational website that uses manipulated ultrasound images and scary (read: medically inaccurate) claims about the risks associated with abortion to keep women from having the safe, legal medical procedure. State Rep. Kimberly Yee (R. AZ) and other Arizona lawmakers have not been shy about the intent of the website, either. As Yee told the Arizona Daily Sun, "the medical drawings, which are in full color and much more detailed than any ultrasound, may give some prospective parents additional reasons to reconsider their initial decision to terminate the pregnancy."

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I doubt McCain is done being an angry, bitter man who still hasn't forgiven Rice for her attack on him during the 2008 presidential campaign. But someone must have told him that trashing an accomplished, relatively young woman of color who wasn't even remotely responsible for what happened in Benghazi is just not a good look these days. Maybe McCain underestimated how many people had Rice's back, from the Congressional Black Caucus to the president himself -- just as his fellow party members had underestimated the power of the voting bloc they commanded on Nov. 6.

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It’s the women who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex, by dismissing male nature they’re forever seeking a balanced life. The fact is, women need men’s linear career goals – they need men to pick up the slack at the office – in order to live the balanced life they seek.

So if men today are slackers, and if they’re retreating from marriage en masse, women should look in the mirror and ask themselves what role they’ve played to bring about this transformation.

But, "fortunately, there is good news," Suzanne Venker writes."Women have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs. If they do, marriageable men will come out of the woodwork."

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But, as Daily Dot's Aja Romano points out, this is not the first year that Businessweek has issued polls rating the attractiveness of students:

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After years of public-relations and legislative wins, the anti-choice movement is sounding unusually defensive lately. All indications are that they've driven a lot of women into the Obama camp, further widening the much-discussed gender gap, and adopting the movement's aims has possibly cost Republicans the Senate.

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And while it's extremists like Richard Mourdock, Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who received progressives’ derision for saying (and voting for) completely off-the-wall stuff, plenty of Democrats got in on the rape-denying, gun-loving, science-hating action, too. While these Blue Dogs might not want to repeal health care reform (well, except when they do), their records should still give you pause. Here are eight conservative Democrats who are hurting their party and their country -- but still want your vote.

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Todd Akin claims that women can't really get pregnant from a legitimate rape because the body secretes hormones. Now I can't even finish this sentence without getting dumber; it's making me dumber when I say it—but it's something about the body not being able to get pregnant when it's under physical stress. Mr. Akin, I think you are confusing the phrase 'legitimate rape' with the phrase 'competitive gymnastics.'"

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"While the campaigns eagerly pursue female voters, there’s something that may raise the chances for both presidential candidates that’s totally out of their control: women’s ovulation cycles.

You read that right. New research suggest that hormones may influence female voting choices differently, depending on whether a woman is single or in a committed relationship."

Though CNN Health stipulates that "several political scientists who read the study have expressed skepticism about its conclusions," it still posts those conclusions, which are:

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The latest entrant into the Republican rape insensitivity bake-off is Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who said tonight that "even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." He, of course, joins fellow Senate candidate Todd Akin, with his now-canonical "legitimate rape" comment, and Rep. Joe Walsh, running for election in Illinois, who claimed there was no reason a woman would ever need an abortion to save her life or preserve her health. The trailblazer was Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle, who failed to unseat Harry Reid in Nevada two years ago, and famously said that if a hypothetical teenager was raped and impregnated by her father, it was an opportunity to turn "a lemon situation into lemonade."

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The doctor, an avuncular, silver-haired man who's been providing abortions, in the words of one colleague, “pretty much since Roe v. Wade,” turns the screen toward her and traces the outline of her uterus and the embryo, while the girl looks on blankly. He plays the heartbeat, which rises from the machine in a loud, shrill electronic pulse. The ritual, which is repeated several times a day at this Planned Parenthood in Houston and in clinics across the state, is mandated by a new Texas law designed to intensify the experience of abortion — to impress upon a woman, with images and sounds, the sense that she's about to terminate a living thing.

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And thus, a meme was born:

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Look, it’s time to stop being polite and start asking, “What the f*ck do you think you are trying to pull here?”

It is time to ask, “Why the f*ck are men and women who are inexcusably incompetent continually being elected into statehouses, governorships and THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS? And how the f*ck is it that this asshole serves on THE SCIENCE COMMITTEE of The House of Representatives?!

ENOUGH.

This morning, she launched Lady Parts Justice (presumably a reference to the controversial e-card that went viral from the Obama campaign's Tumblr), an advocacy site and PSA that encourages fans of women to vote:

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Mila Means hadn't even begun to actually provide abortions in Wichita, Kan., when Angel Dillard sent her that letter last year, claiming in court that its writing was both "divinely inspired" and protected by the First Amendment. But according to a new study in Contraception co-authored by an abortion provider in California, Kansas' draconian state laws around reproductive rights may have encouraged Dillard.

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So this tidbit in the just-released Pew poll stands out: 48 percent of respondents preferred Barack Obama when it came to "reflecting your view on abortion." That's up by 13 points. Compare that to the 35 percent who said Mitt Romney reflected their views, following several weeks of Democrats working hard to equate Paul Ryan and the Republican platform with Todd Akin on rape and incest exceptions. (Despite Romney's current support of them.) Obama also enjoyed similar growth on issues like foreign policy and healthcare, suggesting an overall lift. But there is no reason to think anyone was pushed away by Democrats defending their support for access to abortion or contraception.

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