This makes no sense to me. There are two elements that kinda drive me crazy here: The decision is supposed to help make birth control affordable to millions. How much more affordable can you make it? It's like 50 bucks a month. I mean, do we—should we start up like a "buy the pill" campaign? Like "feed the children" where we make sure we all adopt one woman and pay for her pills? Anybody can afford this.

A 2010 survey by Hart Research Associates that was commissioned by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, found that paying for prescription birth control had been no easy matter for 34 percent of women voters at some point in their lives. And 55 percent of young women age 18-34, the most likely demographic to experience unintended pregnancies, had at some time struggled to find enough money to purchase birth control.

Thus, health insurance that doesn't cover contraception, which is what Fox News and other critics would like for church-affiliated organizations like hospitals to be allowed to provide for their employees, can be expected to increase the number of unintentional pregnancies. Which means more abortions.

When contraception is provided free, the number of both falls:

Two studies provide evidence that when the barrier of cost is removed, a shift toward the most effective contraceptive methods results. In 2002, California's Kaiser Foundation Health Plan changed its policy to eliminate copayments for the most effective contraceptive methods (IUCs, injectables, and implants) so that they were 100% covered for all users. Before this change, users of these methods had to pay up to $300 for 5 years of use. The elimination of copayments, along with training for health care providers in the use of IUCs, contributed to a 137% increase in their use—and an estimated 1791 pregnancies averted among Kaiser's patient population.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, as cited by The New England Journal of Medicine, "one Medicaid-covered birth in the United States (including prenatal care, delivery, postpartum care, and infant care for 1 year) was $12,613 in 2008." The national average per client cost for contraceptive care in 2008 was $257. The $1.9 billion estimated to have gone toward publicly funded family-planning care that year saved Medicaid $7 billion. Guttmacher estimates that for 2006, publicly funded family-planning services for 9 million women helped prevent nearly 2 million unintentional pregnancies and more than 800,000 abortions.

The Obama administration's ruling on contraceptive coverage is the right one not only in terms of equity, that is, in terms of benefits that should be available to all women regardless of their income and regardless of who they work for. It's also good for the nation's budget.

• • •

Send an email to the White House and tell President Obama to stand firm on requiring all health insurers to cover contraception without co-pays.

Thank you NV! Our message of restoring America's greatness continues to resonate through the west & across the country #NVCaucus #Mitt2012

— @MittRomney via web

Romney sent that tweet out last week, during happier times for him. He was cruising to an easy victory in the Nevada caucuses, Gingrich beaten to a bloody pulp, thinking he was enroute to an easy nomination.

Problem was, Romney's self-congratulations were unwarranted. For one, GOP turnout numbers have been outright pathetic.

After anemic gains in both Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina enjoyed a significant boost thanks to Gingrich's Stop-Romney effort. But Florida began what has become a consistent and significant decline ever since.

Now let's look at Romney's share of the vote.

After six years of non-stop running for president, Romney slipped in Iowa before notching significant gains in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. But again, it's been downhill from there. The more Republican voters hear from Romney and his message, the less enthused they become.

It's not as if Santorum is driving out turnout, but Romney's collapse is so dramatic that it's getting easier for the Not-Mitt-Romney to notch those victories—even as fewer and fewer Republicans deign it worth their while to spend even an hour of their time to choose a nominee. All the while, Republicans have to pretend they're fired up to take out Obama when, quite clearly, they're not.

Of course, Romney has to pretend his message is "resonating." He is a candidate, after all. But no matter how many times he says it, fact is, it's simply not true.

Quite the opposite, actually.

You still have Newt to kick around. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)

But last night a new threat to that strategy emerged in the form of Rick Santorum, who won over the tea party and conservative voters, the same group Gingrich is vying for, in last night's contests. Public Policy Polling previews the potential match-up of Santorum and Gingrich with these voters in North Carolina, throwing Mitt Romney into the mix. As of now, Gingrich has the advantage with ultra-conservative tea party voters in the state.

Santorum fared poorly in both the South Carolina and Florida primaries, finishing a distant 3rd with 17% and 13% respectively. And our newest North Carolina poll finds him running behind there too. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are tied for the lead there at 30% with Santorum back at 20% and and Ron Paul in 4th at 11%. [...]

Gingrich is holding up better in North Carolina than he is elsewhere because he's still winning Tea Party voters and those describing themselves as 'very conservative,' two groups whose support he lost to Rick Santorum in the states that voted last night. He gets 35% of the Tea Party vote to 25% for Santorum and 21% for Romney in the Tar Heel state. Romney wins moderates (41-21 over Gingrich) and voters describing themselves as being only 'somewhat conservative' (36-30 over Gingrich.)

With the kind of money Gingrich's sugar-daddy, Sheldon Adelson, has to throw around, it could be a very wild ride.

• Today's comic from Jen Sorensen is Komen's wardrobe malfunction:
  
  
• Democratic Senator Dan Inouye had a few choice words for former Rep. Pete Hoekstra's racist ad that has been getting a lot of attention this week:
  

  “America should expect much more from a candidate for a high federal position,” Inouye said. “His racist thoughts are not welcome in the United States Senate.”

• Comedy:
  

  Police in Littleton, Colo., on Monday pulled over a motorist who was protesting the way Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney transported his dog on a family vacation three decades ago.

  The motorist, a fan of the fledgling "Dogs Against Romney" protest movement, had a dog kennel strapped to the roof of his car -- just like Romney did during a 12-hour drive in 1983. [...]

  "Our 911 center received a call from a motorist who saw the car in the photo drive past, and she said the door to the animal carrier was open and a large white dog was in it," Littleton city spokeswoman Kelli Narde said in an interview. A police dispatcher radioed nearby officers, who spotted the car and pulled it over. Fortunately, no dog was harmed: "There was in fact a stuffed animal in the cage," Narde said.

• Sean Hannity is pretty sure that President Obama didn't really want to take out Osama bin Laden. Because ... uh ...
• Gone (from the 2012 Republican race anyway) but not forgotten:
  

  After a failed attempt at the Republican nomination for president of the United States, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has returned to one of her signature causes: banning marriage equality for same-sex couples ... She said same-sex couples do not have a right to marriage, just like she does not have a right to marry her son. [...]

  “Well it really is and I think you are exactly right. I think it’s important that we fundamentally remember everyone has the same right; no one is being denied rights,” she said. “Every man has a right to marry; every woman has a right to marry. They don’t have the right to marry the person of the same sex, just like we don’t have a right to marry our son or daughter. We don’t have a right to marry our grandfather or grandmother.”

• Apparently Ohio Governor John Kasich gave a rather bizarre State of the State Address yesterday:
  

  Non-bluetongue cows going to Turkey. A dream about Jerry Seinfeld in the back seat of a car. Californians are “a bunch of wackadoodles.”

  John Kasich’s second State of the State speech Tuesday was rambling and at times bizarre. Among his head-jerking references, Kasich told the first three winners of a newly-created state courage award not to sell the medals on eBay; pointed out his “hot wife;” and imitated someone with Parkinson’s disease when he talked about “deep brain massage.”

• Be sure to watch the video of this marshmallow moment:
  

  "The Secret Service is going to be mad at me about this," Obama said, before energetically pumping a compressor and shooting the marshmallow gun, invented by 14-year-old Joey Hudy.

  Obama watched open-mouthed as the candy shot across the room before crashing into the wall near the entrance to the Red Room, an elegant state parlor which stuffed with rare 19th century French furniture.

• Researchers have finally reached the fresh water of Lake Vostok, sealed away for millions of years under thick Antarctic ice. How long before they can answer the big question, could life somehow exist in this alien environment? DS

"I will always take a strong stand for bigotry in the name of the big guy upstairs!" (Sarah Conard/Reuters)

GOP presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) said the Obama administration's view of proponents of the California's "Proposition 8" amounted to bigotry. [...]

According to Santorum, speaking at a campaign stop in Texas Wednesday, the administration's view of advocates of Proposition 8 is that their "'belief of marriage between a man and a woman is purely irrational based on irrational hatred and bigotry. Where's the tolerance in that?"

Poor guy.