This woman won’t stop digging:
Karen Handel, the former senior vice president of public policy at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, accused Planned Parenthood of extortion during an appearance on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
The charity faced a public backlash after the Associated Press learned that it was halting their partnership with Planned Parenthood because of recently adopted criteria prohibiting grants to organizations under local, state, or federal investigation. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) had called for an investigation of Planned Parenthood to ensure that no public funds had been spent to carry out abortions.
“It’s clear that Planned Parenthood proactively went to [the Associated Press],” Handel said. “On top of that, what is even more disturbing is the gross mischaracterization of the decision, the solid evidence that this was a premeditated, orchestrated attack on a breast cancer organization.”
***“This was nothing sort of a shake down,” she said. “To watch what played out, and somehow an organization like Planned Parenthood to be held up as sort of the face of the women’s movement was stunning to me. There is clearly a real bias around this, that somehow the right to an abortion equals women’s rights, and I reject that. It is outrageous, absolutely outrageous.”
Handel ran for Georgia governor in 2010, but lost to Democrat Nathan Deal. Part of her political platform was ensuring no taxpayer funds were used by Planned Parenthood.
Emails that have surfaced since the controversy began show that Handel was in fact behind the decision, although Komen founder Nancy G. Brinker has repeatedly denied that.
How could this be a premeditated attack on Komen when Planned Parenthood was simply reacting to what the fetus fetishists like Handle were doing to them? Planned Parenthood was simply reacting to the fact that Komen cut off funding for breast exams.
Is every single member of the right delusional? Do any of them have any grounding in reality? And do they really have nothing other than victimhood? Karen Handel tried to screw Planned Parenthood, and it backfired on her and Komen. They are not victims here.
scav
When all else is lost, keep talking? That’s all I can think of. I don’t think that works unless you have a fez and 2 (rather than 0) hearts.
BGinCHI
Can’t for the life of me think what this makes her in Rushbo and Morrissey’s terms.
Nope. Can’t think of it.
Poopyman
Yes. No. Yes (they don’t).
SATSQ
Poopyman
@BGinCHI: It’s OK as long as she didn’t enjoy it.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: A vindictive control freak mean girl? Or is that shrill of me?
Frankensteinbeck
Answers for your last paragraph:
1) Almost all, and the rest are pretending so hard it doesn’t matter.
2) None of them, not even the ‘sane’ ones.
3) They also have hate, selfishness, paranoia, and narcissistic arbitrary ‘ideals’ they value more than people.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
They are too victims because they are right, Bobdammit.* Because shut up, that’s why. In other words, yes, they are delusional. And water is wet; film at 11.
*What a friend’s 4 year old niece took to exclaiming when frustrated after hearing my friend utter “G*d damn it” one too many times. Now substituted widely for G*d damn it in my circle.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The facts don’t favor them, so they’re banging on the table. Like Special Ed below, our job is to make sure that people don’t get distracted by the banging.
cmorenc
By the same logic as Handel’s using here, back in the mid-1960s if any Southern charitable entity cut off funding for any organization serving the black community which advocated practicing racial integration, and donor pressure was organized against that charity in response, that tactic would have been “extortion”. Likewise, the contemporary pressure on Limbaugh’s sponsors over his “slut” remarks is also “extortion” by Handel’s logic.
ANY sort of boycott tactic is extortion by Handel’s logic, and maybe she does have a logical point here, but the implication she’s obviously trying to make from that, that boycotts for political purposes are unethical, doesn’t follow the way it does for anti-competitive monopolistic practices in a business setting.
Persia
@cmorenc: I don’t really think she does, though. The fact is Planned Parenthood wouldn’t have done any of their alleged ‘shakedown’ if Komen hadn’t cut off funding in the first place.
Martin
She reminds me of my dog. Anytime someone goes into the kitchen, he lights up and follows because ‘kitchen = food’. And it doesn’t matter if it only results in food 2x a day, he’ll follow you 100x a day. There’s no unringing his little pavolvian bell.
Planned Parenthood != abortions, but they absolutely cannot shake that, no matter how much evidence you put before them. The hear the bell, and do what they have to do.
Cat Lady
If they could see that they’re delusional, they wouldn’t be Republicans. It’s the same set. Conservatism is a mental disorder and the last three weeks have proven it. The only thing left is the official DSM entry.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): My 12yr old son was talking about the words he and his friends have come up with. One of them is bussturd.
Mr Stagger Lee
Nathan Deal a Democrat? Is fact checking done anymore?
The Ancient Randonneur
Well her audience in that particular interview was a group that essentially believes the Sumerians invented ink a thousand years before the Earth was created. However, I do try to keep in mind the religious difference between them and me is that they are atheists when it comes to Thor, Baal, and Vishnu–I just go one god further.
(h/t Richard Dawkins)
cathyx
It feels like I’m getting too up close and personal with these wingers who I would never in a million years be up close and personal with. I think I need to go back to the puppy and kitten thread and cleanse my mind.
MattF
That Handel quote leaves me with an image of lady body parts at war with each other. Vagina attacks Breast! Tsk… can’t we all just get along?
BGinCHI
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Obviously this is what the Bishops want too.
My Truth Hurts
In answer to your questions, John –
Yes.
No.
No.
SiubhanDuinne
Huh?
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Was once. Isn’t now. Reporters can’t be bothered to get things right, though; they’re too busy pointing out what lousy ethics bloggers have, as is shown by their foul-mouthed, vituperating language.
cmorenc
@Persia: I’m simply pointing out that even accepting Handel’s logic that the pressure of the donor-boycott of Komen over the Planned-Parenthood flap is thereby in some sense “extortion”, the implication that it’s an unethical form of pressure does not necessarily follow. But I’ll agree that the sounder logic is that boycott pressure is not inherently unethical, depending on context, and if not unethical or illegal, then it’s not truly “extortionate”, because extortion requires pressure applied in an unethical or illegal context. There’s nothing illegal or unethical about the charitable donation boycott of Komen.
SiubhanDuinne
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Hasn’t been for seventeen fking years.
Brian S
@efgoldman: Sorry, John, but you are dead wrong about this. Conservatives and TeaTards are always victims, in every case. Just ask them.
Exactly what I was going to say. And it stems, in part, from their close links to fundamentalist Christianity, in which being persecuted by the world around you (not to mention Satan), is an integral part of their belief system. And they revel in the persecution (even when they have to manufacture it) because it just proves to them that they’re doing right, because Satan and his minions wouldn’t persecute them if they weren’t being righteous.
Jay C
Ummm, more Wingnut Logic Fail: in Karen Handel’s whiny paean of self-martyrdom, she seems to have missed one important point: the Komen Foundation cut off Planned Parenthood’s funding for breast health activities – which one presumes would be right in the SGKF’s purview of things they would want to foster – dragging the “abortion” issue into the conversation is, at best, an attempt a deflection. Though, more likely, as John points out, just more self-serving lying.
scav
If we’re going to hunt down every single delusional member of team what’s up with them, we’re going to need to pace ourselves. I’m probably better at one of the middle shifts.
AliceBlue
@SiubhanDuinne:
If I remember correctly, Deal switched parties a couple of days after winning reelection to the House as a Democrat (and after telling a reporter that he had no intention of switching parties.)
SiubhanDuinne
@AliceBlue:
Exactly right.
BC
Hal
What slays be about Handel is de-funding PP is her fucking signature issue, which she has pursued for years. Yet she keeps insisting there was no politics in her decision.
Soonergrunt
Yes, no, and no. SATSQ.
pseudonymous in nc
@AliceBlue:
That was in 1995, to get some of the Gingrich sauce. He’s been a proud wingnut ever since.
Crappy fact-checking by RawStory. But it’s good to see that Handel’s new career as wingnut welfare martyr has already begun.
paradox
Sorry to wander off-topic, but my new word is boofus.
Any Republican will do, an unfortunate de-evolution resulting from an individual being both a butthead and a doofus. What a boofus!
West of the Cascades
@AliceBlue: Yes, Deal changed from the Democratic to Republican party — in 1995.
sal
Curses! Those of us in the People’s Front For Breast Cancer have been trying to keep on the d.l.! Damn you Karen Handel, you’ve sniffed us out! Now we’ll have to join the Revolutionary Front For Cancer Of The Breast, and that’s a mouthful. It’s a dark, dark day that Karen has shone the light on us.
PurpleGirl
@Jay C: …funding for breast health activities – which one presumes would be right in the SGKF’s purview of things they would want to foster …
Ten to one the Planned Parenthood grant was a competitively won grant based a proposal that PP gave to Komen in response to a Request for Proposals for Breast Health and Educational Activities. It is very often more efficient for a foundation such as Komen to ask for help from other organizations with more and better experience to fulfill their mission via an RFP. Also they can extend their physical reach by involving a group like PP which may have programs already in areas that Komen would hard pressed to service. That makes Komen’s attempt to void the grant now even worse to me because they (Komen) can’t replace the PP programs any time soon.
asiangrrlMN
@BC:
I’m laughing like hell over this, but I really do think many on the right believe they are the bosses of the Constitution.
Wah wah wah, Handel. You reap what you sow, jackhole. Like so many of her kin, she wanted to implement her agenda with no blow-back. It doesn’t work that way, Karen. The right has overreached on this issue, and as Komen and now Limbaugh have seen, the left has said, “Fucking enough already” and are pushing back.
Game on.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Bet your dog is smarter.
Sideshow Bill
Fix the quote please, Deal is definitely not a Democrat. He was a Republican congress critter who resigned rather than face an ethics investigation.
Jeff Boatright
“Is every single member of the right delusional?”
Feature, not bug.
different-church-lady
This is something you see over and over again with hard core conservative screamers: they do not understand how time itself works. You see it in things like Obama being blamed for bailouts that happened before he got elected.
When you dealing with people like this it is perfectly logical to them that PP could go to the press with the story of funding being cut off before it was cut off, because anything happens whenever they think it happens, not when it actually happens.
It’s either that or Handel thinks ‘proactive’ means ‘actively’ and ‘premeditated’ means ‘deliberate’. I wouldn’t put it past her type to have her vocabulary that munged up.
Mike S.
Is every single member of the right delusional? Do any of them have any grounding in reality?
yes, and yes.
the two (delusion and grounding in reality) are not mutually exclusive, as their delusions do not necessarily extend to all aspects of their lives. humans are odd that way.
Bob
Really, it’s a little late to be asking for Republicans to make sense. They create their own facts, their own world, and reality does not need to be consulted. Handel is creating a story line for conservaworld. All of her needs can henceforth be met (money, fame, etc) within that world. They have discovered that as long as they don’t break character it doesn’t matter how outrageous the lies they tell, the illogic of what they say, they will be supported by enough of the population (30%-40%), and most of the moneyed interests, to make their lives comfortable, and they will be impregnable to the one hand/other hand media. So stop expecting them to make sense, stop expecting that, with facts and logic that moment will come when they say, “Well ok, you got me there, but I sure as hell had you all going there for a long time, didn’t I.” Ain’t gonna happen.
piratedan
cause and effect, action and reaction…. do these people not understand these concepts or do they all just go through life in as if in a sociopathic dreamlike state where they can simply act as they wish and never have to look back at the flotsam and jetsam that their decisions have created or even anticipate that someone, anyone might actually disagree with them?
Jado
Pft. The only reason you think the GOP are “delusional” is because you f’ing people wouldn’t go along during W’s reign, when the GOP was re-writing reality as an Empire. If you all simply played along and believed that reality is mutable via the whims of conservatives, we could still be in a paradise of a permanent Conservative majority and W would still be king.
BUT NOOOoooooOOOOO. YOU all have to point out things like “real-world consequences” and “facts” and “results”. We were SO CLOSE…
Killjoys.