The Komen Foundation just released the following statement:
We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.
The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.
Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.
Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.
Probably not good enough, but at minimum this will be a lesson to other charities tempted to grind political axes.
BGinCHI
As folks said in several threads last night and yesterday: let’s hope this leads to greater scrutiny on corporate charities who raise lots of money but don’t get much of it out where it belongs.
Corporate inefficiency meme, anyone?
Dave
Just goes to show that bullies do back down when you slap them in the face.
rikryah
will NEVER send them another donation
Rawk Chawk
yay
Punchy
Wingtard Republican congressman (seriously, choose anyone) files criminal complaint against PP in 3…..2….1….
JPL
I posted this down below
Komen foundation has a way to go before they can repair their reputation. At this point the curtains were open and most realize that they spend little for care or cure.
Bullsmith
Hopefully this will be a lesson that PP is no ACORN and the all-out assault on it’s integrity from the right will abate, or at least be treated with a little less enthusiasm by public figures.
Not much of a frigging backdown though, is it. “We didn’t make a mistake and we’re going to make sure we don’t make one in the future. We’ll deal with funding PP when their current grants are up.”
Maus
uhhh, don’t be suckers.
PP funding is still fucked.
dmsilev
Translation: We’ve had umpteen thousand people leave our supporter list, we’ve lost umpteen million dollars in prospective donations, and we’ve started getting uncomfortable phone calls from all of our corporate sponsors.
Butch
Not nearly enough. The damage is done.
Boots Day
It’s nice that they made the right decision, but it would help if they’d stop lying about the whole “under investigation” thing.
rob!
Mistermix, why the reticence? Sure, Komen’s ugly face has been revealed, ala They Live, but this is exactly the kind of win Liberals need to have to show that we can mobilize and win some of these culture war battles. For too long, we’ve ceded the battlefield to wingnuts, so every time we can stem the tide of winguttery I take it as a big, big victory.
But I voted for Obama, so what do I know?
Calouste
As long as Handel doesn’t get kicked out, it is all kabuki. They’ll just wait for the shit to die down and try again next year.
mistermix
@Punchy:
The adults just took over at Komen and pushed back hard. Bullshit investigations won’t do it.
Now, I’ll believe they’re really serious if Karen Handel gets the ax. You can’t ax the founder, but Handel definitely needs to go.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fuck ’em. I take some pleasure in it after reading Tbogg’s post on Charmaine Yoest, who know has to cancel her plans to run pink.
amk
Time to fire that ceo bimbo (who fucked up the brand name on fucking live teevee y’day with mrs greenspan) and that veep racist from GA.
Nied
Weren’t they just saying yesterday that the investigation wasn’t the reason for denying funding to PP?
Cat Lady
Shorter Brinker: Donorz R in r bas3 killin R monee$.
Seonachan
So now they’re back to the “under investigation” rationale? I don’t see what’s so different in this statement, other than the part about investigations having to be criminal. So PP will be eligible to apply for future grants, which gives them enough time to cook up some other bs excuse to deny them.
Dork
@rikryah: I agree. This’ll placate most of the corporate donors, but they may have permenantly lost a sizeable percentage of on-the-ground support by this bullshit chicanery.
Water girl
Too little, too late. That organization is still screwed, in my opinion.
tjmn
Not good enough. Far too many weasel words.
tjmn
Not good enough. Far too many weasel words.
Martin
Yeah, way not enough. Maus already caught the opening in how this may not be an actual reversal of policy. No explanation for why this happened, or what will prevent it from happening again. No word on Handel, which now needs to be addressed after she was caught tweeting. And after yesterdays PR fail parade, the only explanation for a change of heart today is the corporate partners threatened to pull the plug as Maus also noted.
Too weasely, doesn’t address the source of the problem, doesn’t actually fix the problem, and just sets up a pile of new questions that are going to put them on PR defense for – which they’re never going to dig out from under.
Make an example of them.
Bullsmith
(Posted this thought in the earlier thread, will repeat here.)
The SGK bunch really are slimeballs in their PR. Their first stance was they didn’t defund PP because of abortion, but because they were under investigation (crimals? we don’t know for sure yet, but probably), the they switched their story to saying that PP didn’t pass their criteria (see, criminals, not doing things by the book over there).
Even now they’re not really backing down from anything they did or said, really. The first sentence of the release is strong but the rest of it is hardly a mea culpa, nor does it refute any of the sleaze they threw at PP. In fact they’re sort of saying “due to political pressure we will lower our high standards so that even corrupt PP gets some dosh.” What a nice charity.
JPL
Yesterday Nancy Brinker said it wasn’t because of the investigation. It was to direct the money to some place else in magic wing nut land…
hmmm
Seebach
I hope nobody falls for this.
General Stuck
So i guess they will be restoring PP funding for cancer screening. Add that to the extra cash sent to PP, and it is serendipitous karma for women’s health. This is your standard happy ending.
amk
The site is all fucked up today.
debit
Yeah, it doesn’t matter. They’ve ruined their brand forever. I’ll never forget, nor will my daughter, nor will many others I suspect.
kd bart
Cue the Fox Nation hissy fit.
Polar Bear Squares
I’m cautiously optimistic.
mistermix
@rob!: I’m enjoying that they led with an apology and pretty clearly are backing down in the fight against PP. And I’m also thinking that we are still in the first act of this tragedy and they’re so far in the hole that they’ll either follow this up with real action or show that they’re not serious. The fact that the affiliates pushed back so hard and so quickly, and statements are coming from the board (“we”) indicates that something is going on internally at Komen, and this might just be the first action among others.
gbear
So where does that leave them in regard to their funding of programs at Penn State? Hmmm?
shortstop
Didn’t Brinker say yesterday, “We haven’t cut off funding to PP! We still have three grants out to them for this year!” This statement doesn’t change that status at all, does it? Nor, as y’all are noting, does it include a definite commitment to PP going forward.
No, this won’t be enough. But the anti-choicers are already going ballistic, and that’s always fun to watch. Quite a few of them donated (one-offs) to Komen in the last 36 hours, and they are PISSED and demanding refunds.
JGabriel
@JPL:
Too late.
Everyone that cares knows now that SGK is a right-wing front organization: with questionably high overhead and “education” costs; a low percentage of funds going to actual research, diagnosis, or treatment; a leadership consisting primarily of GOP fundraisers and politicians; that lobbies against broader access to, and government funding of, health care; and that sells corporations the material and licenses to market themselves as anti-cancer while producing products or pollution that are suspected or known carcinogens.
(Re-posted here, where it’s more apropos, from previous thread.)
.
Soonergrunt
Well, they haven’t said anything about it on Red ass, the Regnery Publications’ marketing site, so we don’t know what they feel about it.
Not that I give a shit other than the chance to drink some wingnut tears.
Think about it. SGK will give PP the money, and PP made even more money out of this, and the bullshit investigation now looks like the setup it is, and SGK’s conservative cohort just got shanked on national television.
It isn’t over yet. We still have the ritual suicide/quitting to spend more time with family scene from Handel, and notes for the next year about how SGK still hasn’t fully recovered, but this is all sorts of delicious.
The Moar You Know
They are lying. Planned Parenthood – plus everyone else they defunded, which amounts to a lot more money but didn’t get any press – will never see another dime from them, but next time there will be no public announcements.
Redshift
Shorter Komen: We’re sorry you recognized our blatant politicization for what it was, and we’re very sorry you didn’t believe our first attempt at bullshit, but we really hope you’ll believe our new bullshit and give us money and stop yelling at our sponsors. Thank you.
roc
@Maus: My impression exactly. This statement is as transparently self-serving as the original policy changes.
I can only hope that charity crashes and burns and donations get directed to more deserving groups.
kdaug
Ask yourself: What will your instinctual reaction be when you hear “Komen Foundation” – for the rest of your life?
Unforced error, and the damage is done.
CaptainFwiffo
Can they really unfuck the rats?
gwangung
@Redshift: Win.
General Stuck
The statement says they stopped the funding due to the bogus pol investigation from House wingers, and they have changed that criteria that would now not apply to PP. If they renege on the previous funding levels, or muck around with any more strings attached, they will have driven the stake through their brand forever. The statement tells me that the awful PR they have received, put the fear of liberal jeebus in their shifty hearts. Otherwise, republican money spends the same as other money, and double that for a good cause.
fasteddie9318
The only change here is that PP will apparently still be allowed to apply fir future grants. Anybody who thinks they’ll get those grants, please raise your hand. Nothing here on restoring stem cell research grants, and certainly nothing on improving their capacity to do anything of value beyond branding and taking a thick cut out of whatever money rolls in. This should be trumpeted as a win for the PR value, but Komen still needs to be ended.
daveNYC
Yeah, PP can apply for grants, and SGK can turn them down, or give them greaty reduced amounts of cash. This statement just means that instead of trying for the home run, they’re going to settle for hitting lots of singles. Either way, within a few years, PP won’t be getting a dime out of them.
Abo gato
Yeah well, we now know that SGK is basically a right wing money laundering outfit. I’ll never contribute to them again and am going to see if we can persuade our city to not sponsor any more of their run for the cures. Fuck SGK. And they better get on about firing Handel too, after her re-tweet.
Fester Addams
Oh dear, this really does feel like rubbernecking a burning wreck now. And those distant popping sounds I hear must be the exploding heads of forced-birth enthusiasts who just made approval contributions to big pink…
Soonergrunt
@The Moar You Know: Oh, they’ll have to give PP the money this time. Next year, they’ll quietly turn down PP, but this year, they just want this to go away, and 650K is cheap for what they’ll be buying.
Violet
@shortstop:
Good stuff! Komen can’t really win because they chose to get political and no matter what they do, someone’s going to be angry with them.
Paul W.
Agree with others saying that this is a bullshit half apology, and that I certainly won’t be sending them any more money.
However, I also agree that this is a good example of the push back that associations like NPR and charities need to get when they do stupid shit in order to try and appease the drooling wingnut crowd.
scav
Whisking specific individuals, however media-handicapped and visible yesterday, won’t actually solve anything either. Cheap and easy PR: the individuals won’t be permanently harmed (probably only become martyrs anyhoo) and the functioning and ethos of Komen is unchanged and bone-deep systemic (if slightly wary for a bit, but let’s not forget the rest of the pinata fillings that rattled down). Nice to have gotten a solid flinch though — they didn’t expect the Intertoobzigation. I’m with the camp that it was some corporate phone calls that caused the camel to stagger.
Villago Delenda Est
Has the Handel bitch been shitcanned yet?
With no severance pay, I might add. Unceremoniously tossed out of the building by the security guards.
Bulworth
“We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.”
Even though our VP for Policy is a conservahack who campaigned against PP, you dirty hippy liberal complainers are wrong to think our nakedly political decision was political.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Fester Addams:
K-Lo at the Corner:
Satanicpanic
They’re just going to try the same thing 6 months from now when they think no one is paying attention.
TaMara (BHF)
@debit: This. And every time we see those fucking pink ribbons or “race for the cure” tm logos, we’ll be reminded. It’s win-win. Their own branding is going to do them in.
JGabriel
mistermix @ Top:
Is that a good thing? I see it as more neutral than good or bad.
I think the impact here is that SGK, and charities like it, will be subtler and more secretive about their funding criteria and defunding choices in the future. On the other hand, that would indicate a level of shame — or at least awareness — that they might not have previously possessed, which I suppose is a good thing?
Well, more positive than not, anyway.
We’ll see how it plays out. The likeliest outcome is that most people forget about it in a few months, except as an occasional cautionary tale.
.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Maus: Exactly.
“Our funding to @PPact clinics continues this year at more than $250k; women served through PP grants will be served still.”
We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities. (emphasis added)
Despite (even the liberal) Times reporting the same headline, SGK had already said existing grants would continue. This is simply spin, imho. Applying for future grants does not indicate they’ll be awarded and actually funded. Or, beware of careful wording.
shortstop
@Sarah Proud and Tall: She keeps using this word “gracious.” I do not think it means what she thinks it means.
joes527
@shortstop: This isn’t going to satisfy the folks who were angry with them, and it is going to piss off the folks who wanted them to defend PP. Komen is going to not have it’s cake, and not eat it either.
Their only hope is that the moron majority goes back to running/eating yogurt. (Which very well may happen. The clueless really do outnumber the shrill by a wide margin)
General Stuck
I wonder. the epic relentless shitstorm these idiots created , falling on their empty heads, will not be forgotten quickly and with no appetite for a repeat any time soon, I suspect. PP could probly ask for the sun and the moon, and they’d say how fast do you want them.
Bulworth
@Abo gato: Yep
Danny
Is Karen Handel still on the payroll?
joes527
me@61
defend => defund
dOh!
Rita R.
I think it’s too late. The genie’s out of the bottle and too many people have been woken up to what Komen is all about even beyond the Planned Parenthood decision. I know I’ll still be avoiding Pink Ribbon products, and my newly set up montly donation to Planned Parenthood remains.
In the end, this turned into a huge, huge win for PP, and Komen served to bolster an organization they wanted to help destroy. They’re getting the funding back from Komen, and the consciousness of a whole lot of Americans — including many who are usually pretty apolitical — has been raised about the war on PP and the 97 percent of the work they do that’s about women’s health care and not abortions. Karma works sometimes.
(Reposted from the Grindr thread. Belongs here.)
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: No she hasn’t. And this “walk-back” is no more than the same garbage spouted by Nancy Brinker yesterday, but run through the professional PR grinder to make it smooth and palatable for the masses.
The Moar You Know
@Sarah Proud and Tall: You can’t unfuck a chicken. They’re now going to get the crap hammered out of them no matter what they do.
Villago Delenda Est
@joes527:
Yeah, that’s a pretty major typo!
Props for promptly setting us straight…I knew what you meant to say.
In other news, this is pretty shocking:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/soaking-poor-state-state
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
Toothpaste’s out of the tube. That crack can’t be un-smoked … What I’ve learnt over the past two days is how unsavory SGK’s business practices are, and the organization’s recanting of their position does little to help me unremember what I’ve read.
Speaking as the son and the grandson of breast cancer survivors and the father of a daughter, I was merely impatient with all the Pinkwashing (NFL? Seriously? Buncha rapists supporting the search for a cure?!). But now that the lid has been peeled back on the politics and practices of SGK’s leadership, I can’t urge people strongly enough to find other breast cancer charities.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane:
FAIL.
Komen is dead. They’ve committed an unforced error, and they are going to pay for it.
Fuck the forced-birth assholes.
lovable liberal
How can we gin up a criminal investigation of Komen?
They happily destroy our institutions. Let’s put one of theirs in the morgue.
At least, the IRS should yank their tax-free charitable status.
Mouse Tolliver
@shortstop:
Yup. Heard her say that on Mrs. Greenspan’s show. This isn’t a full reversal. They gave themselves an opening to de-fund PP in the future. They’re waiting to do it when nobody’s looking.
Cat Lady
@Redshift:
I had posted this on my FB wall 10 minutes before I read your comment:
Shorter Komen: disregard everything we lied about yesterday – we’ve got a lie you’ll like better today so you’ll keep giving us money.
So, I owe you a Coke.
Jim Pharo
Hard to see this as sincere, laden with falsehoods and all…
If you’re digging a hole for yourself, first thing to do is PUT DOWN THE SHOVEL. Stop lying. Get on the level.
Betty Cracker
I smell the same rat others smell — this new statement is just the same bullshit Brinker trotted out to Andrea Mitchell yesterday about the existing grants. Either way, they’re screwed. Now those of us who didn’t realize SGK was a wingnut front group do know it, and this “backing down” gesture will infuriate the fetus fetishists. Lose-lose.
Rita R.
@Violet:
Yep, they killed their golden goose. Or pink goose, as the case may be.
However, I do hope that some other breast cancer organization that actually directs most of their money to research, prevention and treatment steps up to fill the void. It would be a shame if the effort against breast cancer is hurt because of the fall of Komen, even if just 30-something percent of the money they took in went towards that effort.
General Stuck
The delicious irony is, not only PP getting a bunch of extra cash from pissed off liberals, but also Komen getting a bunch more cash from celebrating wingnuts, that now will likely end up in PP’s coffers. Wingnut fail parade #238
kindness
I have read elsewhere that Komen still isn’t going to give new grants to Planned Parenthood. So while their statement of making good on current grants might sound nice, Planned Parenthood’s grants ended and Komen is not going to renew.
Still lying sacks of shit which makes sense being that they are now just another right wing scamming organization.
dogwood
@Calouste:
I’m not so sure about this. They are never going to admit they are a partisan political charity, so they are sticking with their story about new criteria for grant applications. My guess is they will make sure that PP meets that criteria next year. They don’t want another shitstorm like the one that hit them this week. And they know damn well the media will be watching a bit more closely in the future because this is the kind of story they like.
wasabi gasp
Timmmber!
RedKitten
Well, I’m sure that this new offering will improve their PR…
facepalm
JGabriel
Mouse Tolliver:
Yes, that is what I think too. Next year’s grant will be smaller, the next even smaller, etc., until it’s so small they can safely say we’re just not going to bother with it anymore. I give it three to five years.
.
joes527
I think that the Komen foundation was just pissed because today wasn’t shaping up to be an all-Komen day at BJ.
They fixed THAT problem.
satby
As I said in the last thread. Komen is dead to me. Even if they fund PP, stem cell research, etc. Now that I see how they’ve previously used their donations, I know we can get a bigger bang for the bucks elsewhere.
Soonergrunt
@lovable liberal: I should think that between the mail fraud and RICO statutes some enterprising US Attorney can come up with something.
kay
I love that it’s now completely accepted that conservatives run baseless witch hunt investigations in the House to smear their opponents.
It’s okay with everyone. Andrea Mitchell (rightly) waved away the “investigation” yesterday with disgust because everyone knows it’s ALL bullshit from those guys.
But that’s OKAY, I guess. They can harass and waste everyones time and money to their hearts’ content because that’s just what they do.
The House that Newt Built. What a proud legacy he left.
General Stuck
@RedKitten:
You haven’t seen the newest model, specially made for Komen Execs. The P-22 Hopeless Edition
Southern Beale
Absolutely not good enough. Thanks for the apology but fuck you. They didn’t restore funding. They’re continuing with existing grants. That’s what they were doing already.
So nothing has changed except they’re really really sorry.
Fuck that shit.
Soonergrunt
@General Stuck: And they will get no more money from the wingers (or at least much less) after this non-backdown backdown, which will only be seen as a backdown to people who demand nothing less than full-throated support for their positions.
RossInDetroit
@RedKitten:
Nothing says ‘Women’s Health’ like a pink 22 cal. 10-shot semiauto pistol, huh?
Zandar
And the Komen idiots do the worst possible thing: a half-assed kinda-sorta reversal on their policy, which will make precisely zero people happy.
They’re done.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
head of LiveStrong just announced a $100,000 matching grant to Planned Parenthood on MSNBC
KrisWV
@Calouste: I would take a bet that Ms. Handel will be starting a new job elsewhere before June.
Yayyyyy for women’s health and speaking out
slag
@kay:
Exactly. It’s how they just know about all the waste, fraud, and abuse in government. They’re the ones who put it there.
Republicans are like the mafia who sell fire insurance. They would hate to see something bad happen to such a lovely place! It would just tear them up inside.
Comrade Dread
Shorter version: Whoops.
They’ve now made themselves a target of both liberals and conservatives with their waffling.
Pissing away that much good will from every political persuasion takes real talent.
joes527
@RossInDetroit: All snark aside …
Exactly what is the demographic that will buy a Walther P-22 with a ping slider “for the cure?”
RossInDetroit
This has all redounded to PP’s benefit, in my opinion. I’d never given them much thought, and this week we gave them $50. Pissed liberals will open their wallets. I wonder if it’s possible to have a painless monthly donation like the ACLU arrangement. I’d go for that.
Culture of Truth
Shorten Komen:
“Turn those machines back on!!!”
Brandon
So they are apologizing for pissing off donors and supporters, but are still lying, changed their rationale for a 3rd or possibly 4th time and still following through on their partisan objectives. This reeks of damage control at the most minimalist level and doesn’t even pass the smell test. Unfortunately it may just be enough for the corporate media to let them off the hook.
What is funny is that their statement is itself self-contradictory. The decision wasn’t political, but the criteria established as a post hoc justification was admitted to be political. Pathetic if you ask me.
WereBear
That is the crushed nuts on my sundae of schadenfreude.
slag
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Now that’s what I’m talking about! Komen’s biggest problem is now absolute incompetence. It’s a good time for competent organizations to start picking up Komen’s pieces for themselves.
Someguy
Too late. Shut ’em down.
Mark S.
Yeah, they probably should’ve just gone full wingnut. But I have a feeling most wingnuts don’t actually give a shit about breast cancer and only donated because it pisses hippies off.
rob!
@Mistermix:
Understood. After this, I wouldn’t trust Komen as far as I could throw them.
kay
@slag:
Can you imagine the screeching if Congress were “investigating” a health care provider that serves anyone other than poor people?
I’m not sure I want those creeps getting access to anything close to womens’ medical records. They should conduct the whole thing in the chamber, and put it on C-SPAN. They need supervision.
Culture of Truth
I can’t tell what this really means, but it sure seems like they’re just pissing more and more people off.
lacp
And let’s face it: SGK’s first concern was always women’s health. Not the benjamins. Nope, no way. Nosiree.
Rita R.
@RossInDetroit:
Yes, you can set up a monthly donation to Planned Parenthood on the “donate” page of their website. I did it yesterday, and the minimum is just $5 a month, up to as much as you want to give.
JGabriel
@KrisWV:
Depends on how much Brinker accepts the brouhaha as a cost of moving to the right, which she apparently desires, versus how annoyed she was by the backlash and having to having to spin this shit in the media.
.
Rafer Janders
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
So I went on down to the Corner, and this is some of what I read:
In the NROHQ kitchen just now, Charlie Cooke wondered aloud, and here I paraphrase: “Does anyone on the Left even ask the basic question of whether a private charitable organization has the right to dispose of its money as it sees fit?” But in fact, that anyone thinks there is a question here is a sign we’ve already lost.
Umm, does anyone on the right even ask the basic question of whether private individuals and private corporations have the right not to dispose of their money as they see fit to a private charitable oganization that has revealed itself to be not in line with their goals? Sure, Komen has the legal right to give or not give as they want. And we have the legal right to not give to Komen in return. See how that works?
Will Wilkinson, who is pro legal abortion and probably the libertarian with whom I agree least often, gets it exactly right on this score, observing that there is more than a little gangsterism in the response from the PP set:
‘…But I’ll be damned if this doesn’t look a bit like PP throwing it’s weight around, knocking a few pieces of china off the shelves, sending a message to its other donors: “Nice foundation you got there. Wouldn’t want anything to, you know, happen to it.”’
I swear I can’t figure out how these people think. They’ve poisoned their own minds.
Mark S.
@joes527:
Nobody. They probably made one of them.
Jay in Oregon
Southern Beale @89 has got it right.
They’ve not changed course at all, only tried to spin it like they have. They’re still going to give Planned Parenthood the money they had already committed to, and maintains that PP is “eligible” to apply for new grants.
(Of course, there’s that whole eligibility guideline that they created specifically to give themselves an excuse to stop giving money to PP to worry about; no word if that has been rescinded.)
The only way this can end well for SGK is if Nancy Brinker and Karen Handel are shown the door.
Cap'n Magic
Sorry, SGK, but that newly trained dog of yours won’t hunt.
Jewish Steel
All my FB peeps say, Fuck em. They showed their true colors. Could anything be more loathsome?
schrodinger's cat
BTW, Do you know what the greatest political blogger of all time and BJ favorite, Sully, is covering instead of this breaking news story? Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Maus
@Martin: Interesting further
johio
This is no change at all. We need to keep the pressure on so that lazy mainstream media don’t report this as a reversal and gives everyone permission to move on and look away. Until Komen funds the grant they previously denied, nothing has changed.
Maus
@schrodinger’s cat: When the fuck has he ever cared about women?
General Stuck
This may well shut them down from losing funding from pissed wingers, depending on how much they receive from them. But if it doesn’t, they are PP’s personal bitches for the near future. Planned Parenthood folks must be walking on sunshine about now. It don’t get much better than that in the steamy jungles of the culture wars.
edit – also losing funding from pissed liberals.
JGabriel
@Culture of Truth:
OR: “Rein in the Kraken! We done fucked up! Must use something subtler, like rabid squirrels, for our next attack!”
.
Paul in KY
@General Stuck: If the Brinker lady wants to shoot herself, it would be nice if she used that weapon.
Rita R.
@WereBear:
Haha! And now I want ice cream….
schrodinger's cat
@Rafer Janders: NRO wants us all to go to our own slaughter, meekly and without a murmur.
scav
@Maus: SOP. how does one raise one’s eyebrows and do a half-roll in here?
RalfW
@Nied:
Indeed. Their second story was about PP not being an efficient provider/not doing mamography themselves.
“This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative,” as a famous Republican would say.
joes527
@schrodinger’s cat:
MY GOD.
There is a blog that hasn’t gone all Komen? How will people hear about the injustice? I say it is a cover-up!
Paul in KY
@joes527: Wingnut females who like tacky looking guns, yet want a weapon that will work properly & not jam.
eric
Odd that the message from defunding PP is that you should never pull out when you are Komen….
JGabriel
@Culture of Truth:
“If we’ve pissed off both sides, we must be right!”
I know journalists think that works for them, but for charities? Let’s just say it’s really hard to get donations out of people when everyone thinks you suck.
.
scav
Wait, wait, no one’s done the Brinker woman will skate joke yet? !
Culture of Truth
PP! Bunch of mammogangsters!
canuckistani
@joes527:
I guess anyone who thinks Crime is the Disease.
WereBear
@RedKitten: So Bill O’Reilly was right when he raved about lesbian gangs with pink guns?
Because, you know, lesbian gangs care about people. More than Billo, certainly.
PurpleGirl
And they can demand a refund of their donations because technically the grants that Komen makes are SUBVENTIONS, i.e. they are passing on donations given to them to do certain things and if they are not done, the original donor can object.
Rafer Janders
@schrodinger’s cat:
If it’s not one of Sully’s pet hobby-horses, it doesn’t exist for him. Someone targetting gays? Even better, someone targeting gay conservative Catholics? It’s the greatest injustice ever!
But women’s health? Eh, it’s just not on his radar screen.
For someone who goes on and on about empathy, he has remarkably little of it.
lacp
There is a history to SGK logic: “We had to cut off funding for mammograms to advocate better for women’s health” ~ “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Satanicpanic: You mean like the Representative who is submitting a bill like SOPA while people are congratulating themselves?
J.W. Hamner
@Southern Beale:
I don’t understand this statement… could you clarify? “Funding” is generally considered existing grants. In addition, the letter alleges that they’ve changed the rule that made PP ineligible to apply for future grants.
I’m not saying that this lets Komen off the hook, but it really does look to me that they’ve completely reversed their decision. What am I missing?
Rita R.
@Rafer Janders:
Hmmm… wonder if either of these two has seen fit to write about the gangsterism involved in the ongoing, relentless effort to destroy Planned Parenthood that’s been ratcheted up since the 2010 elections? No? Maybe because Komen’s about corporations and Republicans and cute pink shit, while Planned Parenthood works under relentless pressure every day — including the threat of violence — to serve the health needs of women, particularly young and poor women who have few other options.
F*ckers.
Rafer Janders
@schrodinger’s cat:
“They’re…they’re shooting back! At us! Is…is that even allowed? Can they do that? No one told me they’d be shooting back!”
Elizabelle
Too little too late.
Sing along, to the tune Wayne Newton popularized for us:
Komenfraude
Darling, Komenfraude
Wingnut hired
and now our base destroyed
Donors gone, people found us out,
we’ll never make it back, we’re kaput, oh Komenfraude
Pink ribbons. They now say “cowardice”….
Investigations. If they win the House …
Komenfraude, darling, komenfraude …
Villago Delenda Est
This is a prefect example of a time when only a Captain Needa apology will do.
RalfW
@kay:
If he weren’t stone cold dead, Senator Joe McCarthy might be a little upset that his long legacy of ruined lives and national paranoia is getting eclipsed by a philandering grifter hack.
Trinity
@rikryah: This.
GregB
By the way.
Would any of this be happening if James O’Keefe hadn’t done his pimp/ho road show with Planned Parenthood?
RedKitten
@eric: Delightful. I may steal that.
jayboat
Here’s hoping they die a quick and painful death.
TBogg’s got a nice tag over at his joint:
“PINK IS THE NEW YELLOW”
Heh.
schrodinger's cat
@joes527: Oh I am not outraged at all. I just thought it was rather funny. He can write about whatever he wants and I can laugh about it, if I want to.
You must be new here. This blog has a special relationship, a history if you will with Sully. Many of us found this blog through Sully. DougJ and John, also post about Sullivan and his Daily Dish a lot. See for example posts about Sullivan and his obsession with Ryan Plan. So it is a standing joke here, to figure out what Sullivan thinks about a particular issue.
imonlylurking
Too little too late, too much ‘sorry you were offended’ and I’m not supporting a stealth Right wing organization in any way.
Nancy
The Komen Foundation 2010 tax return shows about $74 million spent in grants and assistance to programs and organizations carrying out the mission — or roughly 41 percent of the year’s $177 million in expenses, including $18 million in salaries, $18 million in marketing expenses, $11 million in office expenses, $8 million in technology expenses, $2 million travel expenses, $2 million for conferences, $18 million for consulting expenses, $2 million on race production and $7 million in “other” expenses. (Better Business Bureau says a charity should spend about 65 percent or more of its income on services.)
Details would be nice. Like why were they spending one fourth as much on “consulting expenses” as on grants and assistance Who were the consultants—family or friends possibly.
I’m gonna be a consultant in my next life.
scav
@J.W. Hamner: They haven’t released their new rule for future funding, which may just be a better crafted version of same. Obviously.
Bulworth
So can someone remind me what the initial Komen decision was if they weren’t cutting off current funding? Did they say that no future grants to PP would be awarded?
General Stuck
@eric:
Fundus Interruptus
piratedan
@Rafer Janders: i hear ya Rafe, no one questions that they can spend their money where they choose, yet for some reason that’s more important than the thought that a charitable organization that was perceived to be an organization above partisanship for the laudable goal of a common good aren’t the paladins of altruism that they have cast themselves to be.
It would be like Planned Parenthood decided on who they would help based on income or somethin’…..
Niques
I don’t even consider it an apology. Just more spin. I am hoping the masses continue their boycott of anything pink ribboned. I know I will.
Comrade Misfit
@The Moar You Know:
Exactly right. They’ll just kill one grant at a time until they achieved the same result.
schrodinger's cat
@Maus: Well lets not make generalizations, he cares about two women, Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher.
artem1s
this is the BEST possible outcome IMHO. PP won’t be getting any future funding but Komen now had been branded as a CIMO (conservative in name only) charity. it sends a very clear message to other conservative curious organizations that pulling a stunt like this may not turn out to be such a good move.
PP also scores double in donations over the last 48 hours. and the 27% will never stop demanding their donations back or godbothering Komen over an issue that wasn’t any of their business to begin with. talk about mission creep fail!
hitchhiker
I feel a little twinge every time I read Susan G Komen’s full name. She died a long time ago, and her (already wealthy) sister decided to start a foundation and named it after her.
Now the dead woman’s name has become synonymous with greedy hateful incompetence wrapped in a stupid pink ribbon.
That sucks. I think the most disgusting thing is the sister accepting a $400k salary to run the machine that was supposed to help women in Susan’s name. Really? $400,000 that you don’t need, taken from donations given by families of people with the same crappy disease that killed your sister? For shame.
satby
@Rafer Janders: They’re just pissed that we can play the outrage game too. And faster and bigger.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Nancy:
so they spend 18 mil for people to tell them how to spend another 18 mil?
kansi
This news, plus the support JC Penney showed Ellen DeGeneres against the anti-gay American Family Association, shows that pushback works.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/03/ellen-degeneres-fans-fight-anti-gay-group-over-jcpenney-gig/
Soonergrunt
@Rafer Janders: I should’ve thought that he’d be all over this from the “but, but, but, the BAYBEEEEZZ!” angle with a bunch of pablum about the evils of abortion and so on and so on and on.
AA+ Bonds
Good job, people!!!
Steve
People who keep saying “they will just do it more quietly next time” are missing the point. They didn’t do it loudly this time. This controversy did not start because Komen hung up a banner that said “WE ARE DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD.” It started because Komen quietly communicated to Planned Parenthood that it had “changed its grant criteria,” and Planned Parenthood wisely screamed bloody murder and got the whole country pissed off at Komen.
Komen has said they are “changing their criteria” yet again to make Planned Parenthood eligible to apply. Setting aside that they are an organization with no credibility, that’s really about all one could expect of them – they weren’t committed to approving anyone’s future grant applications previously and they still aren’t committed today. But if they deny Planned Parenthood’s applications a few months down the road for some BS reason, Planned Parenthood will sound the alarm again and Komen will be in for Round 2 of this debacle. So it’s hardly as easy as “they’ll just do it quietly later.”
Applejinx
Strangely, this suggests to me that capitalism can work beneficially in society, something I was real skeptical about.
Clearly what’s happened here is, corporate America en masse went ‘uh, no’.
Which means wingnut madness is not considered even something you can brush under the rug, and furthermore that it ain’t only angry wingnuts who lash out politically and cause trepidation in the boardroom.
WHICH means we have just as much leverage as they do. The time when wingnut rage could be expected to have profound effects on corporate America is apparently now over. They had a good run… for a time, hippie rage seemed ineffective.
Let’s make the most of the pendulum swing. It’s time to build things not easily destroyed. It took how many years for the wingnuts to destroy what FDR built? Let’s rebuild the country twice as solid.
…I am also bitterly amused that wingnuts are demanding refunds. CLASSY. I have no problem being grateful for what little good the tiny amount of branded-product stuff I bought, did. Komen are dead to me, but I’m not demanding my money back because they turned out to be evil.
The wingnuts are apparently going to try to take their ‘reward’ money back when Komen turned out not to be evil enough (or technically, to answer to higher masters). The parable of the frog and the scorpion comes to mind. They’re wingnuts, how can they not know wingnuts are treacherous faithless fucks with no broader view but their agendas?
Still avoiding any pink ribbon ‘for the cure (r)’ things forever.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Rafer Janders: It’s easy, IOKIYAR. The constitution only applies to their benefit. the rules were only made to restict other people, not them. They are completely unable to think from some other point of view.
henrythefifth
That’s quite a non-apology, to be honest. The second the spotlight is off of them, they’ll go back to the drawing board to defund what they consider undesirables.
AA+ Bonds
But still- don’t give to Komen, ok
chrome agnomen
if we could just get bain to take over komen, they’d be out of business in a couple of months.
slag
@kay:
They really are creepy. I don’t think CSPAN would show it out of concern for accruing fines from the FCC.
Creepy and gross these people are. I wish they’d learn to keep their filthy little paws to themselves.
Elizabelle
@Nancy:
That 2010 return is ridiculous.
They’re a money collecting organization that sidelines in making grants. 41% you say? And this is an established charity.
J.W. Hamner
@scav:
Well they’ve said things like “criminal” and “conclusive”, which I guess could still be weaseled into still making PP ineligible, but I don’t imagine they will try that again.
If this is just slight of hand… what’s most likely seems to be simply not awarding future grants to PP for other reasons… but I don’t know what their granting system is like, on what criteria proposals are scored, or who is in charge of it. Unless someone here is, I don’t think we can conclusively say how the “eligibility for future grants” thing is going to work.
Amir Khalid
A full apology from the Komen foundation would have been addressed to Planned Parenthood, who would have had to curtail breast cancer screenings; to thousands of Planned Parenthood clients, some of whom would have had a life-threatening illness go undetected as a result; to all its donors, whose intentions for their gift would have been thwarted; and lastly to its corporate sponsors, who have been embarrassed before their customers.
And that minor tweak to the policy won’t do. The whole thing is tainted: by the admission of an SGK board member, the foundation adopted it just to have a reason to cut off Planned Parenthood. It’s got to be repudiated in full, and a new policy on disbursing SGK funds to bodies under investigation needs to be drawn up from scratch. (That is, if SGK didn’t already have such a policy before they maliciously targeted PP.)
Finally, this has all been tremendously damaging for SGK. It has lost credibility with much of the public. It will have more trouble finding people to take part in fundraising runs, donors, corporate sponsors. Heads should be rolling there right now. But SGK has not announced any firings.
shortstop
@joes527: Bwa!
AA+ Bonds
And ESPECIALLY good job hitting those Komen donors – whoever they expected to make up the difference couldn’t pull it off
Steve
@Bulworth: The initial decision was that PP wouldn’t be eligible to apply for any future grants for so long as they remained “under investigation.”
@Rafer Janders: Do they even stop to think that there’s been an ongoing campaign for the last several years to pressure Komen into dropping its Planned Parenthood funding? The stupidity is painful.
amk
@satby: Bingo. Keep it up left. Grab the fucking headlines and drive the fucking narrative. For those who whine here that “it doesn’t go far enough”, get over your fucking selves.
pragmatism
Like in office space sgk is “fixing the glitch”. PP, we’re gonna need you to move down to subbasement B and I’m gonna take your red swing line stapler. Then no more paychecks.
AA+ Bonds
I hope all the Debbie downers in here will allow the left to take credit for its victory…
JGabriel
@shortstop:
Literally, in this instance. K-Lo appears to be using “gracious” when she means “grateful”.
.
Anonne
I guess the sane folks pushed back, plus they got scared that their gravy train was going to run out.
dogwood
@schrodinger’s cat:
I emailed him about that very thing. I’ve said this before about Sullivan – He’s a good writer, he’s probably intellectually gifted, but he has the emotional and social intelligence of a 16 year old. He has never been able to care much about anything that doesn’t affect him directly. And when he does go all romantic and empathetic, it’s about dying Iranians. American women dying of breast cancer, not too interested in that.
PurpleGirl
@RossInDetroit: I’m sure PP has donation plans like that. I believe most large organizations will do that — they like to know that they will have X-amount of money coming in at a steady rate over the year. It helps to make their own budget/spending plans easier to develop.
kay
I saw “no-choice movement” for the first time with this thing.
I like that better than “anti-choice”, or, certainly, “pro-life”.
We have to settle on a phrase :)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@hitchhiker: Maybe we should start calling it by the name of the founder, rather than SGK. Something Something Brinker (don’t want to look up the name), formerly SGK.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
Brinker should resign, with no severance or pension of any kind from the foundation.
The Handel harridan must be fired, also with no severance.
Then the Foundation must repeal the “under investigation” rule that they instituted specifically to defund PP.
There also needs to be a house cleaning to derail the gravy train for executives that this outfit appears to be. They need to get their actual disbursements to research and treatment up to the 75% level, minimum. No more corporate junkets for Komen employees.
If they can’t or won’t do these things, fuck them.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
this was a win, keeping in mind that komen couldn’t do a full-romney on this.
we will need a lot of wins,but we have found tools that work.
win the process.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
this was a win, keeping in mind that komen couldn’t do a full-romney on this.
we will need a lot of wins,but we have found tools that work.
win the process.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I could see this ‘decision’ coming from a hundred miles away. I bet there were some very heated exchanges between all of their corporate sponsors and SGK over their moves to cut off funding to PP. When a lot of people are pissed off and your product or event is painted with an easily recognizable symbol (aka: target) that they can aim for to exact retribution, you can bet those businesses are raising hell with SGK. I wonder if any of them told SGK that they would sue their asses off for ruining their product sales.
The initial decision to cut off funding was hateful and political, this new ‘decision’ was an ass-saving financial move.
I think they already lost their ass and I don’t think they are going to find it. I know my wife and daughter aren’t going to be very forgiving, that’s for damned sure, especially in light of how little that SGK gets that goes towards finding a cure for breast cancer. They wrote a check that their asses can’t cash and now they are pretending to tear it up.
Nope, not buying it. Literally.
Maus
@henrythefifth: Yeah, I’m pissed at every credulous news source that calls it a “reversal”. Was that in the press release, or are they seriously not paying attention to the content?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@kay: That would also make a great t-shirt/bumper sticker: I’m Pro-Choice, not No-Choice.
VOR
This is going to be a B-school case study in how NOT to do PR. They have now pissed off everyone and probably chased some sponsors away.
Bulworth
@Steve: Thank you
Mike G
If “cry me a river” Handel is still on the payroll, this is meaningless at best.
If she gets fired, she’ll probably land a hosting gig on Fox News where she can whine incessantly about being a victim of the mean libruls.
What I’d like to know is how and why obvious Repuke ideologue operatives were placed in such high positions in a women’s health charity organization in the first place — when they obviously care less about actual women’s health as opposed to imposing their politics.
Let’s hope these organizations steer away from hiring blatant Repuke hacks in future, who might torpedo the organization in some self-righteous ideological purity quest.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I just saw the clip of Nancy Brinker saying that she’s hurt or confused or something that people could think this decision was political. Appropriate she worked for the Bush administration, because she dredged up the “Is she that stupid, or does she think we’re that stupid?” question that I used to ask myself almost every day from 2001 to 2008.
Maus
@Villago Delenda Est:
She also needs to get kicked off the board-
She’s the Chairman of the biggest antichoice activist group in the US, and on the board of the biggest series of “pregnancy crisis centers” in the US, AFAIK.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: This is my absolute favorite wingnut routine: The hot defense of one’s own individual liberties combined with total failure to recognize that others have some, too. It leads to everything from pharmacists trying to deny certain legal drugs to customers, to religious hospitals demanding public funds while declining to observe federal law, to gay-bashers insisting that their religion should make them immune to anti-discrimination laws. Laws aside, it brings people to the unbelievably lame conclusion that just because a private organization or individual has a right to do something, that institution or person is being victimized if other people exercise their own right to criticize or ridicule in response.
People choosing to withhold private donations is “gangster” now? What a bunch of whiny babies, insisting on their own way while demanding that they be protected from all criticism of it. Not one of them can make it in the rough-and-tumble free market of ideas they claim to love.
slag
@Amir Khalid:
Isn’t it crazy how grossly incompetent such a massively huge organization can be?
To me, it really demonstrates that just having social capital makes life so much easier for these people. If being a big business really required some element of genius, in no way would these people be big business. And yet here they are. Frantically, desperately trying to hold up the house of cards they’ve built for themselves.
Sad really. Our soft bigotry of low expectations has been so, so cruel to these people. We should change our ways.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop:
These are the kind of whiny babies you leave outside for the dingoes, with no regrets or remorse.
amk
To the fools here, who were defending the ugly pay of that stupid ceo bimbo y’day, Ha. FU.
The Other Bob
This is a Congressman Bart Stupak-level of stupid reversals. What happened to him?
dogwood
@Steve:
Exactly. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of the inability of liberals to celebrate any type of victory whatsoever. Nothing is ever good enough. The Komen foundation gave a bullshit reversal statement so what happened the last few days means nothing. DADT was reversed, but not fast enough. We got out of Iraq, but DRONES. Excellent jobs numbers are released, but but but. It’s getting ridiculous.
Maus
@amk:
what on earth
Kyle
@Villago Delenda Est:
Translation:
We’re sorry we got caught. We didn’t think anyone was paying attention. We’ll try better to get away with it next time.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@shortstop: They don’t like ideas at all.
elftx
Fk Brinker and her dead sisters’ cancer she rode to a $500k salary on.
Rita R.
@shortstop:
This. All of it. Perfect summary of the wingnut mindset. Bullies who snivel and whine when they finally get punched back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kyle: It’s kind of like their teleprompter jokes. Everyone they know knows that Planned Parenthood is a terrifying boogeyman.
shortstop
@PurpleGirl: Really? Doesn’t that only apply to gifts that were restricted when made?
@kay: I like it, too! I’m in.
@scav: This is why I love you.
slag
@Maus: Ignore. It’s been seeming for a while now that amk’s dosage is off.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kyle:
Like I said, the textbook example of where only a Captain Needa apology will do.
Bulworth
We want to apologize, we want to be seen as apologizing. But we aren’t apologizing. You people are whining, whiny babykilling liberal hippies. Now just buy a pink something and give us our money.
Original Lee
@Redshift: This this this-ity this.
Another Bob
Doesn’t NPR have to fire someone now to restore fairness and balance?
amk
@Maus: The whole fuckery in this thread, if you care.
Arclite
Fuck you, you fucking liars.
Mnemosyne
I still think they’re screwed. They’ve made themselves “controversial,” and there’s nothing giant corporations hate more than being associated with outside organizations that are “controversial.”
As I said before, Komen thought that this action would make Planned Parenthood the source of the controversy, but they completely miscalculated, made themselves the source, and now they’re hosed. They severely damaged their brand and there’s very little they can do to repair the damage. Corporate sponsors are going to be quietly dropping them right and left.
The best part, of course, is that they did it to themselves. Golf clap for the wingnuts.
scav
@J.W. Hamner: Might now work immediately on the next go-round, but odds are they’ll still try. I expect, like many unpopular policies I’ve seen pushed on college campuses and smallish towns, they’ll keep bringing it up, year after year, slightly rephrased, until they sneak it past once which is all they need. Each year, smaller and smaller, each year any comment from PP being seen as same-ol same-ol. I have zero reasons to trust SGK’s good intentions at this point.
amk
@slag: GFY. :)
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
the rise and fall of the komen empire.
Southern Beale
RIght wing blogs are apoplectic.
Good, they shit they bed TWICE.
So apparently all of the SKG affiliates are on a conference call right now with national, explaining this “change.” I expect some of the more progressive wings in CA and whatnot will weigh in if the change is not good for women.
satby
@kay:
Forced Birthers works for me.
Edit: WHY is this site so slow today??
Southern Beale
Totally unrelated but does anyone have a fucking clue what this was about?
What the hell is wrong with these people/
shortstop
@dogwood: I read those comments a little differently. I didn’t see most of them as Eeyoring and woe-is-ussing so much as warning, “This isn’t really a reversal at all; we have to keep watching these people, because they are still up to no good.”
geg6
Too little, too late.
I’m done with them and will never again run/walk for them, send them cash, or buy another fucking piece of merch with a pink ribbon on it.
SGK can kiss my ass. I’ll work for and donate to the American Cancer Society and PP. Why bother with the middle man anyway, amirite?
Arclite
@rikryah:
Just send directly to Planned Parenthood or to the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t want to celebrate too early, but I’ve been wondering for a while now why the Republican war on abortion rights is causing more of a stir on the Left, or from the Left of the Far Right. This is definitely a sign of the growing insularity and over-confidence of the Right, maybe people are finally waking up to it.
Bulworth
@Southern Beale: The world is insane. This is merely one example.
sukabi
don’t know if this has been noted, but AmericaBlog has several relevant posts about Komen… and a huge amount of background on the people behind the foundation…
the last link is chock full of info and connections, all sourced. Worth knowing WHO is behind an organization, then you won’t be surprised when the mask falls off.
beltane
Please, please, please, before it is changed, go have a look at Karen Handel’s Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Handel
Is it true that she worked as a prostitute in the early 90s or is someone pulling our leg? You never know with these wingnut ladies.
Maus
Hahahah-
Komen’s “investigation” coverup is pretty hypocritical, given that another poster found this information the day the story broke:
“KFC is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Ford is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Bank of America is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
American Airlines is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Caterpillar is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Nestle is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Egglands Best is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Yoplait is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Dell is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Major League Baseball is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Lowes is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
Merck is under investigation…Komen takes $ from them
AND
ASCO is under investigation…Komen gives $ to them
AACR is under investigation…Komen gives $ to them
WHO is under investigation…Komen gives $ to them
In fact EVERY corporate partner checked except Hallmark Cards Stores was under some sort of investigation and every organization they gave grants to was as well”
DanielX
@Southern Beale:
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like…wingnut heads exploding, with a dash – okay, more than a dash – of schadenfreude.
Which is all good, well, and very enjoyable, but now watch the pressure from Republican congressmen (pick one or more at random) on the Justice Department to file criminal charges of some sort against PP for…for something, it doesn’t matter what. If this was the Bush Justice Department it would have happened already, through the offices of some “loyal Bushie”. (Where IS Bradley Schlozman when you need him?)
These people are not going to give up, ever.
satby
You know what would be totally sweet? If PP takes some of the extra donations, and buys a few digital mammogram machines for severely underserved areas.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
People choosing to withhold private donations is “gangster” now?
At the least they could say we’re “gangsta”. Ah’m stone cold thuggin’, son, witholdin’ all a’ my donations from tha Susan G. Komen, yo, goin’ all loco up on their corporate sponsorships and brand marketin’. I ain’ playin’ aroun’ with this women’s health issue, cuz. Got mad love for that Planned Parenthood and you mess wit ’em, you mess wit’ me, no joke.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT but too good to not share
now that’s some good thinkin’ for a guy who won in a fluke and is facing a strong challenge.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
It’s a six year old’s moral logic: fairness for me, but not for thee.
scav
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: WTF is all this singing at rallies suddenly? As if I didn’t have reasons enough to avoid them. Or is this a traditional part of the quadrennial torture that I’ve just somehow missed?
Joel
The best of all worlds. Planned Parenthood gets the grant, and Susan G. Komen gets revealed as the frauds that they are. H/T to ginandtacos for the Marie Claire (!) link.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@scav: IIRC the Brownling was on that Simon Cowell talent show, so Daddy’s campaign, like Trump’s and Palin’s, is just one more reality show
geg6
@schrodinger’s cat:
He has covered exactly none of this whole four day, five alarm scandal. I don’t think he’s had a single post about it (though I may have missed it) and, if he did, it was so little and so in passing that I never saw it even though I’ve been monitoring his site just out of curiosity.
Once again, Sully shows just how much he hates women and anything that concerns them. And in my experience with gay men, I find that astounding. Most of my gay male friends love women.
scav
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: aah, so it goes in that box. props dragged along in horse trailers or on top of cars for publicity’s sake. easy-peasy. ta.
th
I am happy! This is a victory for us! It made my emails to Komen and to Yoplait so worth it! Count me as one liberal hippie who is thrilled to see our power! Although I was planning on moving all the Yoplait in the grocery store to the unrefrigerated section this weekend. I suppose I won’t do this now.
Maus
@scav: It’s creepynormal with politics.
schrodinger's cat
@geg6: Agreed! Though I am no fan of hers, his obsessive attacks on Sarah Palin were just creepy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and, as others have said, this isn’t a reversal so much as a stall tactic:
celticdragonchick
God botherer (and white male defender of banning birth control at your local Catholic hospital) Rod Dreher at American Conservative is demanding that Komen refund his 25 dollars.
This is after he complained about a left wing black list campaign to defund Koman.
You can’t make this shit up.
th
#233 from Maus – thanks, I printed this list of corporate donors and am going to at least email them to let them know I am boycotting them and to stop funding Komen.
Cain
@RedKitten:
aww… I wanted to hold out for the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator!
celticdragonchick
@schrodinger’s cat:
I though Sarah deserved every bit of it, personally. Her story of starting labor in Texas and then insisting on a multi hour plane ride to Alaska and then a multi hour car trip to Wasilla (in labor) to have the baby at a hospital that has no record of the kid even being born there is, ahem, bullshit.
Her camp succeeded in shutting everybody else up (how dare you ask about a candidates kids that way!), but she was lying about what happened. Why was that?
Beats me.
Redshift
@Cat Lady: Nice. You’re better at “shorter” than I am; I always find it hard to constrain my natural instinct to make sure it really says everything I want.
The Other Bob
@celticdragonchick:
I want the birth certificate dammit.
amk
@Maus: Dang, rimshot. Their fucking fig leaf isn’t a leaf at all.
Maus
@geg6: You haven’t met many gay libertarians, then. They’d see the world suffer to earn a dime.
Not that being gay make them any less or more of a libertarian, but I notice a certain acidic “oh YOU’RE suffering? WELL BOO HOO HOO” among those former friends and acquaintances.
J.W. Hamner
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t understand this argument… while I think they should give Planned Parenthood more money… saying that they should commit to future funding outside the grant award process seems doesn’t make any sense. That’s not how grant awards work.
geg6
@celticdragonchick:
I agree with you that the whole Trig birth story is a lie, but the way Sully fixated on it, not to mention the fact that he is the absolute least qualified person to be questioning anything about women, how our private parts work, and how the birthing process works. I have no problem with the women out there, especially on the Alaska blogs, who have spent years chasing this story, because they actually were asking the questions long before she became a national figure, they don’t have a well-documented antipathy to women and women’s issues, and they actually know Caribou Barbie.
Sully has made it very, very clear over the years that he fears and distrusts women. Read anything he’s ever written about Hillary Clinton, just to start. I can only imagine that Sully’s relationship with his mother must have been something that Freud would have been taken aback by.
WaterGirl
@PurpleGirl: Doesn’t that mean that in addition to never donating to them again, a whole lot of people who don’t like what was just done to PP can request a refund of donations previously given?
Now THAT would really catch Komen’s attention.
PurpleGirl
@shortstop:
We usually only hear about a very large grant being asked for back — when an alum gives a large donation to their college for X reason and the college wants to use it later for Y. But I think it happens in smaller amounts that we don’t hear about.
In this case Komen raises the money in their own name and then gives the money to other entities; the wingnuts who gave them money in the last few days probably usually don’t donate to Komen but gave this time because they were thinking to kick Parent Parenthood. And Komen has “changed” their stance, kinda, sorta. I don’t think right now Komen will want to be going to court over the donations and having this whole thing kept in the public’s eye.
The Other Chuck
Firing Handel is no good. The CEO is just as much a wingnut, and the board is stuffed with forced birthers. The whole foundation is rotten to the core.
Maus
Puttting $160,000 into lobbying against the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because it provides federal funding relating for breast care education and “competes” with their “nonprofit”.
http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=F82D1D0D-3DAD-4A3D-BC46-139911DD158D
Ruckus
@Rafer Janders:
I swear I can’t figure out how these people think. They’ve poisoned their own minds.
They don’t actually think. They follow. Problem is even their leaders don’t actually have cognitive thought either. But you are correct on the reasoning.
Maus
@J.W. Hamner: Sometimes, just sometimes, when someone says they’ll “consider” something, they might be lying.
They have zero interest in accepting any new grants from PP.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
IMO, she was hoping for what my people term an “Irish abortion,” because if the baby is stillborn, well, you did all you could and didn’t consciously make the choice to terminate the pregnancy. It would also explain why she concealed the pregnancy as long as she did — they were still seriously considering termination and didn’t want a public announcement followed by a mysterious “miscarriage.”
That theory covers all of the suspicious elements without getting into silly “her 16-year-old daughter is the real mother who then got pregnant again a few months after giving birth!” conspiracy theories.
Odie Hugh Manatee
EE over at RedNeckState has an explanation up to assuage the anger of the locals:
So nothing has changed eh? Keep ringing those bells people!!
J.W. Hamner
@Maus:
I agree that that is a possibility, but nobody commenting here knows it to be true… so if the point is to “keep the pressure on” fine, but this can only be acknowledged as a complete reversal from Komen.
Maus
@J.W. Hamner: Look at the link above you. The board is acknowledging this publicly.
les
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Geeze, that link needs a large warning sign; I’m gonna start drinking early after seeing that.
J.W. Hamner
@Maus:
No it isn’t. You don’t appear to understand how grants happen. Nothing that guy said is in any way controversial. You can pretend that it is if you want though.