In his second debate with President Obama, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was asked how he would close the pay gap between men and women. Rather than answer the question, he instead told a false story about how he requested “binders full of women” to help him select female candidates to serve in his cabinet while he was governor of Massachusetts. In reality, Romney did not request these binders; they were assembled by a bipartisan group called MassGAP and presented to him after his election. According to a UMass-Boston study, “the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006.”

As it turns out, Romney also didn’t spend much time going through the binders when it was time to select judges:

By 2005, after two years in office, Romney had nominated 19 judges, of which 17 were men, according to the Associated Press.

With the governor taking heat, a Romney spokesperson argued in a 2005 Boston Globe story that there had a been a lack of qualified women and minority applicants. . . .

But the Boston Herald reported in March 2006 that Romney had passed over a number of widely respected women, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Antoinette E.M. Leoney, Boston lawyer Toni Wolfman, who represented the NAACP, and trial attorney Sally Ann Janulevicus. Leoney was later appointed to a judgeship by Gov. Deval Patrick, Romney’s successor.

Marianne LeBlanc, president of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts from 2004 to 2005, told The Huffington Post that her organization was aware of a “substantial number of very qualified women” who had applied for judgeships.

By contrast, Romney’s successor, Gov. Deval Patrick (D) nominated 57 judges between January 2007 and June 2010. 28 were women.

Romney has also promised to appoint more Supreme Court justices in the vein of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, all of whom joined the Court’s anti-pay equality decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire. The co-chair of Romney’s “Judicial Advisory Committee” is failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, who once claimed it is “utterly specious” to suggest that women have a constitutional right to use contraception. Bork also believes that the Constitution does not protect women from gender discrimination — and he recently said it was “silly” to think that women are discriminated against.

Rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit last week against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for unlawfully detaining immigrants at the federal government’s request for days longer than they should have been held. Specifically, the lawsuit highlights the case of Duncan Roy, a British filmmaker and legal immigrant who spent 89 in jail after an erroneous immigration hold prevented Roy from posting bail.

The federal government can ask for an immigration hold to keep a person in police custody while immigration officials seek deportation, but the immigrant and civil rights groups behind the lawsuit say the practice needs to stop:

“This massive unconstitutional detention is a symptom of the criminalization of immigrants, a dangerous trend that must be reversed,” Jessica Karp, an attorney for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network that was one of the groups involved in the suit, said in a statement. [...]

Three Mexican immigrants and an Estonian who say they were unlawfully held were also party to the class action suit, filed on behalf of all current and future detainees held in a county jail for more than 48 hours solely for immigration holds.

Of the Los Angeles County jail population, around 14 percent – or roughly 2,100 people on any given day – are subject to Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds, according to the ACLU of Southern California, which was also involved in the lawsuit.

Those individuals are held in jail nearly three weeks longer than those without such holds, the group said.

In addition to unnecessary immigration holds, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has also refused to allow detainees to post bail, even when a court has set bail. After sending a demand letter before the lawsuit was filed, the ACLU says the department officials “recognized that individuals subject to ICE holds should be allowed to post bail, have sent bulletins to watch commanders clarifying this rule, and are working on revising policies and data systems to prevent unlawful detentions in the future.” So far, though, the sheriff’s department has not agreed to end detentions for people subject to ICE holds once they are eligible for release.

A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department said officers were following federal law, according to Reuters. In a statement, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said federal officials’ partnership with local officers on immigration holds ensures that “potentially dangerous criminals are not released from prisons and jails into our communities.”

Through the Secure Communities program, local officials have worked with federal immigration officials to flag undocumented immigrants who are arrested. Some jurisdictions are trying to limit the scope of the joint program, and the California legislature passed the TRUST Act last session, which pushed back against Secure Communities by preventing local law enforcement officials from referring a detainee to ICE unless the person detained has been convicted of a violent or serious felony. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed the bill that he said was “fatally flawed” because it had too narrow of a list for the crimes.

The Romney campaign tells CNN reporter Jim Acosta that “we’ve not asked [Richard Mourdock's] campaign to pull” an ad Romney cut this week asking voters to “join me in supporting Richard Mourdock for U.S. Senate.” And a subsequent campaign statement confirmed that “[w]e disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest but still support him.” Watch Romney’s ad supporting Mourdock:

Romney may “disagree” with Mourdock’s claim that a pregnancy resulting from rape is a “gift from God,” but that disagreement apparently only goes but so far. Romney’s official position now appears to be that he does not share Mourdock’s belief that a pregnancy resulting from rape is a “gift,” but he still wants the people of Indiana to “join” him in working to make Mourdock one of the most powerful people in the country.

Moreover, Mourdock mocked the very idea that Medicare and Social Security are constitutional months before Romney endorsed him and before Mourdock made his “gift from God” comment. So even if Romney were to eventually withdraw his endorsement, the fact remains that he was perfectly comfortable endorsing a man who believes that America’s most basic promises to the nation’s seniors violates the Constitution.

Though most voter ID laws and voter purges have been thrown out or delayed by judges, voter suppression efforts are still alive and well. With two weeks to Election Day, voters in critical swing states are being inundated with false information and intimidating messages meant to discourage them from voting. While shenanigans have been reported in every election, voting rights advocates say efforts to confuse and intimidate voters are taking an even more prominent role this year.

• Phone voting. Residents in Florida, Indiana and Virginia are receiving mysterious phone calls telling them they can vote by phone instead of going to the polls. Virginia’s board of elections has received at least 10 complaints, mostly from seniors, though the total number of people affected by these calls is unclear.
• Fake voter purge letters. Also in Florida, a mass mailing of fake letters questioning voters’ citizenship is being investigated. The letter, written on fake letterhead of a local county’s Supervisor of Elections, tells recipients in 23 counties to fill out a “voter eligibility form” with their Social Security information, Florida drivers licence number, and addresses. The letter claims the recipients must send the form to the Supervisor of Elections within 15 days or be purged from the rolls — mimicking actual purge letters ordered by Florida governor Rick Scott (R) challenging 200 Floridians’ citizenship.
• Intimidating billboards. Dozens of billboards warning that voter fraud is a felony popped up suddenly in predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods of Cleveland, Ohio earlier this month. The message, which includes the prison sentence and fine for voter fraud, is likely targeting former felons who do have the right to vote in Ohio. The company, Clear Channel Outdoor, announced they would take down intimidating voter fraud billboards after the sponsor refused to come forward. The company is also donating 10 billboards declaring, “Voting is a Right. Not a Crime!”
• Misleading voter ID ads. Though a judge ruled that Pennsylvania voters without a photo ID could still cast a regular ballot, state-sponsored ads have continued to tell residents they must show an ID. These ads are aired on television and radio, at posters at the DMV, and were mailed to thousands of seniors via a state prescription drug program. A billboard targeting Spanish speakers also continues to misleadingly promote the ID requirement.
• Employer pressure. Several CEOs are pressuring their employees to vote for Romney by suggesting they will be forced to fire workers if Obama wins the election. While employers used to be banned from directly expressing political opinions to employees, the Supreme Court changed that with its 2010 Citizens United ruling. Workers have reported being pressured to vote, donate, and attend Romney rallies by their bosses.

ATKINSON, New Hampshire — Though the Republican nominee for governor of New Hampshire supports the state’s new voter ID law, he couldn’t name an actual case of voter fraud that has occurred in the Granite State.

Ovide Lamontagne lauded the state’s voter ID law, which passed in June over Gov. John Lynch’s (D) veto, as “desirable” in an interview with ThinkProgress on Friday. We asked whether there had been instances of in-person voter fraud in the state to justify the new law that could disenfranchise some New Hampshire voters, particularly minorities, college students and poor people.

“It’s anecdotal only, from what I can tell,” Lamontagne said. “As far as I’m concerned even if it’s only theoretical it’s something that’s not too much to ask to raise the confidence level that the right people are voting in an election.”

KEYES: Have there been cases of in-person voter fraud here? Folks showing up and voting, claiming to be someone that they’re not?

LAMONTAGNE: It’s anecdotal only, from what I can tell. There was a project earlier this year that showed that someone could come in and actually claim to be somebody else and there was pretty easy access to the ballot that caused some concerns. Whether or not there’s been provable voter fraud, the fact that the system doesn’t have some sort of check and balance about that basic verification of who someone is opens the door for the possibility of voter fraud and that’s a risk we should never have to assume.

KEYES: So it’s more theoretical than it’s actually happened?

LAMONTAGNE: As far as I’m concerned even if it’s only theoretical it’s something that’s not too much to ask to raise the confidence level that the right people are voting in an election.

Listen to it:

Lamontagne is unable to name a single actual case of voter fraud because it’s exceedingly rare. It’s not just absent in New Hampshire; in nearby Pennsylvania, where the state’s new voter ID law was considered in court earlier this year, the government conceded that it had no proof of any in-person voter fraud existing there either.

The Granite State’s new voter ID law had a soft rollout during the September primary that contained widespread problems. This November, the law will be in partial-effect; residents who don’t have a voter ID at the polls must sign an affidavit swearing their identity. Beginning next year, those who lack voter ID will not be allowed to vote.

In a debate on Tuesday night, Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said that raped women should not be permitted access to an abortion, because the pregnancy is a “gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape.”

A top Republican has already jumped to Mourdock’s defense. National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chair Sen. John Cornyn (TX), the Republican tasked with overseeing the GOP’s Senate elections strategy, immediately defended Mourdock in a statement on Wednesday morning:

“Richard and I, along with millions of Americans – including even Joe Donnelly – believe that life is a gift from God. To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous.”

Two months ago, the NRSC disavowed Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin after he claimed “legitimate rape” does not lead to pregnancy. Cornyn was one of the first Republicans to condemn Akin, calling for him to exit. “Congressman Akin’s statements were wrong, offensive, and indefensible,” Cornyn said. “I recognize that this is a difficult time for him, but over the next twenty-four hours, Congressman Akin should carefully consider what is best for him, his family, the Republican Party, and the values that he cares about and has fought for throughout his career in public service.” However, weeks later, the NRSC quietly considered reentering the Missouri race. Cornyn said, “we hope Todd Akin wins in November.”

Mourdock, part of a growing number of Republicans hoping to deny abortion access to women, received a high-level endorsement from Mitt Romney earlier this week.

Yesterday, a severely conservative panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a trial court’s decision to grant a stay of execution to John Errol Ferguson, a mentally ill Florida inmate who is a paranoid schizophrenic and believes that he is the “Prince of God.” The Supreme Court declined to review this decision last night.

Yet, in a somewhat surprising move, the same conservative court of appeals panel decided to grant a new stay of execution to Ferguson last night at 8pm — two hours after he was originally scheduled to be executed. This new stay, however, is unlikely to last long without Supreme Court intervention. Under the Eleventh Circuit’s rules, such a stay is mandatory when a lower court judge certifies that a substantial constitutional issue is present in the case — which the trial judge did do here — but the stay will only last long enough to allow the panel to fully consider the merits of the case. Given the extremely conservative panel Ferguson must now convince, his fate likely rests in the hands of the Supreme Court — the same Supreme Court which has twice declined to hear his case.