• Not that it's surprising, but the 43 economists of the Economists' Policy Group on Women's Issues graded John McCain and Barack Obama on 10 issues of importance to women and Obama came out ahead. McCain got an "F" because the group was concerned that his positions would do harm to women. [US News & World Report]
• They probably didn't take into account, though, that the highest paid person on McCain's staff in October was a woman. She's, um, the woman that does Sarah Palin's make-up, and she got $22,800 for the first two weeks of work. [Huffington Post]
• Once upon a time before Ahmadenijad or Chavez came to power, McCain was casting votes in Congress to get the Reagan administration to sit down with an Mozambique group designated as a terrorist organization without preconditions. [Huffington Post]
• And long before Obama met Bill Ayers, McCain was palling around with Chilean dictator and human rights violator extraordinaire Augusto Pinochet and his pals. [Huffington Post]

• Speaking of domestic terrorists, people that bomb abortion clinics and assassinate doctors aren't, in Palin's Weltanschauung. For some reason, that sounded right-er in German. [Firedoglake]
• For those people keeping track of these sorts of things, Palin announced today that the McCain-Palin Administration would except disability programs from its spending freeze. So far, they're exempting defense spending, homeland security spending, veterans programs, science programs and disability programs. Kinda makes you wonder what they are actually going to reduce spending on. [Washington Post]
• Tom Ridge thinks that maybe John McCain would be doing better in Pennsylvania if he'd picked Tom Ridge as VP, but he totally supports Sarah Palin. Tom Ridge: not as blindingly stupid as one would assume if one watched his performance at Homeland Security Secretary. [CNN]
• In a stellar end of the week for the campaign, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Massachusetts Governor (and Republican) William Weld, former Minnesota Republican Governor Arne Carlson and current McCain adviser Charles Fried announced they were all voting for Obama. But they just did it because they're bla... Oh, wait, they're all white. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh will find another reason. [Christian Science Monitor, Talking Points Memo]
• The Republican Party in New Mexico has hired a private investigator to go around and harass elderly Latino voters and try to intimidate them from voting by threatening those completely legal citizens with deportation. [TPM Muckraker]
• In further Republican stupidity and assholery, noted asshole Michelle Bachmann has taped an ad apologizing for calling for the media to investigate anti-Americanism in Congress. Left out of the advertisement is the text of the legislation she'll introduce if re-elected to force Congress to conduct the investigation. [Politico]
• And Joe the Motherfucking Plumber is going to run for Congress in 2010, like anyone will give a fuck about him on November 5th. [The Hill]

NARAL's executive director, Heather Brewer, says: "If Sen. McCain has a problem with women accessing birth control, he should state that publicly. His voting record makes it clear that he does not support access to birth control, so why is he ducking the issue at his own town hall meeting?" But a McCain aide, Jeff Sadosky, said hotel security and the Albuquerque police asked the abortion rights activists to leave when they were seen protesting in a parking lot. When they got in line to enter the event, it was reiterated that they'd already been asked to leave. Politico's Ben Smith adds: "The local press, a McCain aide said, had been aware of, and didn't cover, the story yesterday — often a useful sign of how meaningful an incident is."

We have an overpopulated, at-risk planet, in which a child dies of dehydration every seven minutes and a woman dies of a botched abortion every seven minutes (not to mention the hunger crises in Asia, Africa and Europe). Why is a pill for "erectile dysfunction" — not a life threatening or, frankly, as life-impacting condition as pregnancy — promoted and widely available? And free for the insured? While oral contraceptives (with health advantages like decreased menstrual blood loss, reduced risk of ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer, improved acne and decreased menstrual cramps and pain and uh, not getting pregnant) are not? McCain was at a loss for words, maybe you can fill in his blanks?

Planned Parenthood Launches Anti-McCain TV Spot [Time Magazine]
Naral: Pro-Choice T-Shirt-Wearers Barred From McCain Event [UPDATED] [Politico]

Bent is a former Seventh Day Adventist who founded the church in 1987, though most of the current members of the cult do not have roots in Adventism, reports CNN. Bent moved the whole operation to a remote corner of New Mexico in 2000, which was also the year, he says, that God informed him he was the Messiah. It gets better: Bent says on his church's website that the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal was the first harbinger of the apocalypse and also told his followers, around the same time, that the world was ending on October 31, 2007 (he also claims to have predicted 9/11).

Um, but then it didn't! (Apparently, according to Bent, the apocalypse is a "process"!) Anyway, a former cult member, John Sayer, says he broke away from the church in late 2005, but only after Bent said he wanted to sleep with 7 virgins, two of whom were Sayer's 14 and 15-year-old daughters. "I just told him no. ... I'm not in agreement. I don't see it's right," Sayer tells the AP. (Sayer still allowed his daughters to "lay naked" with the prophet, though he insists that nothing sexual occurred.)

Interestingly, the National Geographic Channel is airing a documentary tonight about Bent and his Lord of Righteousness followers called Inside A Cult. NYT reviewer Neil Genzlinger says, watching the documentary "you might find yourself thinking, 'These people obviously didn't understand the power of the medium or how insane they would sound on film.' But think again: the cult is thoroughly media-savvy, maintaining an extensive Web site (strongcity.info) full of video and blogs." Reading the church's blog just shows how utterly brainwashed the followers of Bent are — so much so that the impact of the outside world just doesn't register. Sayer's younger daughter, posting on the cult's website under the name "Healed" is clearly one of the true believers. She wrote on the site late last year, "Michael DID NOT molest me, and my laying with him was not sexual in any way, either. Michael sacrificed himself and was willing to look like a pedophile so that I might be bonded inseparably to the Father in Heaven." Jesus Christ.

Church Leader Arrested On Sex Charges In Northeast N.M. [AP]
Sect's 'Messiah' Arrested On Sex Charges [CNN]
Strong City [Lord Our Righteousness Official Website]
Ex-follower: 'Messiah' Wanted To Bed 7 Virgins [AP via CNN]
New Mexico Compound's Enraptured Believers [NYT]

Head protester Will Duffy went on Denver's local Fox morning show to speak out against anyone even remotely involved with Planned Parenthood, right down to the cleaning ladies and contractors. They all deserve to be picketed, he said, because they are helping PP "rip the arms and legs off unborn children." Uh, what? I'm pretty sure they don't do that. Fox also interviews Vic Barta, whose Denver Security Services were hired to protect the Planned Parenthood lot from security breaches. Barta has since abandoned the lucrative contract because the protesters outside his house scared his 14-year-old child. Vicky Coward of Colorado Planned Parenthood puts it pretty succinctly: the protesters "say they're pro-family, but they're really terrifying families and communities."

Albuquerque Has Renewal of Attacks on Abortion [New York Times]
Contractor Opens Up About Abortion Protesters [My Fox Colorado via feministing]