Meanwhile, in the other major sideshow going on in the Republican Party, Missouri caveman Todd Akin is in the news again because of a 2008 speech on the House floor in which he stated that doctors sometimes give abortions to women “who are not actually pregnant.”

Note that in this crazed speech, Akin also equated doctors who perform abortions with terrorists, and accused them of all kinds of disgusting and evil practices.

As a true right wing Neanderthal, Akin never backs down, of course. But his Senate campaign handlers are trying to put a slightly less insane spin on it today by saying Akin does realize that women who are not pregnant cannot, by definition, have abortions.

According to the spinmeisters, what Akin meant to say was that abortion doctors often trick patients into thinking they’re pregnant, then fake abortion procedures for the money.

Why this is supposed to be less insane than giving abortions to women who aren’t pregnant, I don’t know.

Washington, D.C. — Rep. Todd Akin’s campaign is standing by the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri’s 2008 claim that doctors commonly perform abortions on women who “are not actually pregnant.”

Akin’s evidence consists of a news report from 1978 and the claims of a former Planned Parenthood official, a spokesman said.

“There’s ample evidence that abortion doctors on any number of occasions have deceived women into thinking that they’re pregnant, and then collect money for a procedure that they don’t perform,” said Rick Tyler, a spokesperson for Akin’s campaign. “And I say they don’t perform it because obviously the women weren’t pregnant.”

Tyler cited a 1978 investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times that claimed that dozens of “abortion mills” were performing unnecessary abortions for profit.

There is scarce other, or more recent, documentation of alleged unnecessary abortions for profit. Asked if Akin thinks unnecessary abortion procedures are still a major problem, Tyler said, “Who would know? No one reports on it anymore.”

As clownish as it may appear, we need to realize that Todd Akin doesn’t come up with this stuff by himself. The kind of evil misogynist propaganda he’s putting into the Congressional record comes straight from the anti-choice religious right.