You’d think our dozen or so Komen posts from yesterday would have captured all of the Komen news, but there’s more. This morning’s Times reports that Nancy Brinker was lying when she said that it was “stewardship”, not politics, that drove the decision to dump Planned Parenthood:
Her comments directly contradicted those of John D. Raffaelli, a Komen board member and Washington lobbyist, who told The New York Times on Wednesday that Komen made the changes to its grant-making process specifically to end its relationship with Planned Parenthood. Mr. Raffaelli said that Komen had become increasingly worried that an investigation of Planned Parenthood by Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida, would damage Komen’s credibility with donors.
Dissention in the Komen ranks continues, with this statement from all seven California Komen affiliates:
The seven California Affiliates of Susan G. Komen for the Cure are strongly opposed to Komen National’s new grant making policy. This policy prevents Komen Affiliates from funding organizations under investigation at the regional, state or federal level. Planned Parenthood is currently the subject of an “inquiry” in Congress.
Love those scare quotes.
Update: Komen’s Oregon affiliate is against the decision, too. (And Komen Puget Sound, thanks MikeJ).
Update 2: I forgot this little gem: a re-tweet by Karen Handel, who’s been identified by sources at Komen as the driving force behind this fail parade. Handel took it down but screenshots are forever:
kdaug
Does that count as an investigation?
c u n d gulag
After this bullshit Conservative move, I hope that Komen is going, going, gone!
They can keep trying to market their color “pink” campaign, but I think their future is far from rosy.
Phylllis
PR fail. Komen’s 501c3 status needs a major investigation.
Also, dissession /pedant
BDR
I do like the Furs allusion.
Omnes Omnibus
This is it, that’s the end of the joke.
MattF
Wingers attack Planned Parenthood all the time– but apparently have never taken a moment to reflect on the fact that the organization has survived all the attacks and is doing OK, thank you very much. So now, Komen’s unguarded reaction is “They’re not supposed to be fighting back.” Well, tough titties, as we say.
kay
I love it because she’s going to piss off both sides:
That’s not enough! They require total and complete victory! Planned Parenthood must vanish from the earth. She thinks she’s going to negotiate with them? Hah. Fat chance. They own her now.
She gained nothing from this. Nothing.
Anya
What happened to all the ivestigative reporters? Someone needs to investigate Susan G. Komen for the Cure. What do they do with their donation, and are they actually preventing vital research because progress in this area will be bad for their bottom line.
MikeJ
The link in the update is Oregon and SW Washington.
Here’s Komen Puget Sound
bemused
Republicans pissing off both sides seems to be increasing. May it snowball.
Elizabelle
@BDR:
I’d missed it at first. Thank you. (A favorite band, too.)
MonkeyBoy
Go to Komen’s “straight talk” YouTube explanation of their decision and vote on whether you think it is straight talk.
RossInDetroit
I woke up this morning pissed enough to send a donation to PP because of this SGK outrage. According to Facebook my wife got up even earlier and had the same idea, donating a healthy sum.
We wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Planned Parenthood wasn’t really on our radar screen like the local food banks and shelters are. But thanks to SGK we won’t forget them now.
beltane
Remember that Karen Handel is a Sarah Palin acolyte so the fail flows naturally from this one.
The Other Bob
Coming in this morning I noticed a 60-something white dude wearing a pink cure hat. I am guessing the right-wing support of Komen has begun.
I wonder this: What would Susan G. Komen have wanted and what does her family think?
Cheap Jim
You know, up until now I had thought of twitter as being completely pointless. But I guess it does have the one use of allowing hateful idiots to accidentally reveal themselves and be recorded doing so.
Gave PP $100 in Handel’s name. So there, Karen.
Elizabelle
Link to Andrea Mitchell interview with Nancy Brinker, with transcript appended.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/02/10303379-andrea-mitchell-interviews-susan-g-komens-nancy-brinker
Brinker is doubling and tripling down.
And this pushback too:
So now SKF’s critics are lazy too? Maybe just stupid?
Or they won’t get taken in by Brinker’s Potemkin Village of new funding guidelines?
Davis X. Machina
@beltane: Fail, like equality, and inequality, displays the transitive property…
beltane
@The Other Bob: I don’t know if Susan G. Komen herself was a wingnut but her sister, the CEO of SGK certainly is. Exploiting the dead for cheap points is nothing new to right-wingers so none of this surprises me really.
Elizabelle
From an LA Times story:
“Planned Parenthood affiliates will be free to apply for future grants once the organization is no longer under investigation, Brinker said. But in any case, she said, its breast health programs may not be the best use of Komen funds.
Although women can receive clinical breast exams at Planned Parenthood clinics, patients are referred to other medical facilities for mammograms, biopsies and cancer treatment, she noted, referring to this model as “pass-through” services.
“We look at the quality of the grants,” Brinker said. “We don’t like to do pass-through grants anymore.”
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-komen-backlash-20120203,0,693195.story
beltane
@Elizabelle: All breast-cancer screeings are pass-through services unless you are fabulously wealthy like Nancy Brinker. It’s not like normal women with normal health insurance can just show up at the hospital without a referral and demand to have a mammogram.
I’d love to see how our health care system works for the upper .01% because I’m sure their experiences with the system bear no resemblance to anyone else’s.
shortstop
I must have listened to that song 1,000 times and never got the “put.” For me, it’s always been “nothing is ever mrwf straight.”
kd bart
OT- US adds 243K jobs in January. Unemployment falls to 8.3%
MikeJ
Hadn’t heard about the Decemberists telling SGK to piss up a rope. Good for them. I may have to rethink my stance on only listening to first albums.
Southern Beale
If anyone has a second, Freep this poll, it will only take two seconds. It’s on the bottom RIGHT corner of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press home page:
ould Komen cut grants to Planned Parenthood?
Right now 56% say yes, but only around 100 people have voted so it won’t take long to skew that in the other direction.
Southern Beale
Also in other news, not exactly Komen-related but Planned Parenthood sued the state of Tennessee yesterday after the state withdrew their grants for STD/HIV testing.
Apparently our Republican state legislature thinks the pro life position is preventing people from getting tested for STDs. Brilliant.
jibeaux
You know what would be awesome is if all the Congresscritters who are always demonizing PP and acting like they could balance the budget if it weren’t for that damn PP held a meeting and said, “so, maybe a hiatus on that this year? I just didn’t know the chicks were so pissed!” or however the sexist asshats talk.
There are other favorite punching bags of the right wing, but pretty much every woman in America has been to a PP or has a friend or family member who has. They’re nationwide and they’re 95 years old. Komen kicked a sleeping giant.
MattF
@MikeJ: An interesting band. They’re connected musically with Gillian Welch, which puts them right on my ‘listen to this’ list.
rumpole
What still amazes me about this is that for a senior VP of public policy (e.g., a lobbyist/pr professional), she’s -still- opening her mouth in a way that kills the company’s brand. If there ought to be one rule in place right now it ought to be: radio silence except for our other spin, and that doesn’t include bashing pro-choice types. Any doubts that this is anything other than a right-wing freak show should by now be resolved.
IMO, there may be a brief surge of giving to SK from the pro life movenment. But that movement does not, in general, care about women’s health. The people who have left Komen (my wife is a perfect example) are gone for good. The folks that gave to SDK because of this are one-offs. Planned Parenthood (and ACS, and Livestrong) have an enormous fundraising opportunity here. And this says nothing about the backlash from corporate sponsors, which is coming. (Can you see the NFL now stepping into the middle of abortion? )
I’m curious to see how many people do the ‘race for the cure’ in the coming months.
jibeaux
@The Other Bob:
Good grief, that’s obnoxious. “Hey Everyone! I Suddenly Care About Cancer!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale: Down to 53% with 125 votes in.
Southern Beale
@SiubhanDuinne:
COOL! Thanks!
kay
@beltane:
She’s pathetic. I was reading about her career yesterday. She was fairly moderate (for a GA Republican) and the extreme Right went after her. She ended up denying and lying constantly, most notably, she denied ever having been a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, and she was once a member.
Her insane renunciation of PP was driven by ambition. Anti-choicers had accused her of being in favor of “gay adoption” (whatever the hell that is) and Georgia Right to Life said she wasn’t pure enough. She responded by attacking PP. She’s been capitulating a long time.
Southern Beale
@rumpole:
Exactly. All a corporation has to say is, “it was never our intent or desire to wade into a divisive issue like abortion. Our intent was raise funds and awareness for cancer. With that in mind we are forced to withdraw our support from Komen and begin new relationships with organizations staying true to that mission.”
Etc. etc. Yeah I used to do this for a living.
Southern Beale
Woot, now 50% say no with 141 votes. Winning!
Lee
Looks like the weekly standard is trying to help Komen.
Warning Weekly Standard Link
RossInDetroit
Clipped from a NYT article from this morning:
(emphasis added)
The whole article is pretty good.
JasperL
The one positive about the way Komen handled this is the gutless, insulting, self serving lies about the decision reveal their core, and it’s rotten.
A lot of people could forgive them giving in to the blackmail of the far right, weighing that decision against all they continue to do for breast cancer. But we don’t forgive being lied to or treated like stupid children.
pk
I think they have also cut of funding for research into breast cancer using embryonic stem cells. I would love to ask some of these right wingers if ever there is a treatment for breast cancer using embryonic stem cells would they refuse it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/us/komen-foundation-urged-to-restore-planned-parenthood-funds.html
PurpleGirl
@Southern Beale: I just voted and the split is now 56% No (94 votes) and 43% Yes (73 votes). Can we vote early and often?
beltane
@pk: They would gladly sacrifice their lives so that a frozen blastocyst may live to spend another day in deep-freeze.
Probably not, but what’s a little hypocrisy between friends.
RossInDetroit
@pk:
I also read that from a reputable source. The question is, if not for political reasons then why?
PurpleGirl
It appears that Mayor Bloomberg has started his own fundraising for PP with a one-to-one challenge grant of up to $250,000.
(I don’t like much of what he does but I have to give him credit for his personal philanthropy.)
Paul in KY
@MikeJ: You’re missing some excellent Decemberists music if you only have listened to their 1st album.
Southern Beale
@PurpleGirl:
Sadly we can only vote once, but thanks! Yeah it seems to be tilting our direction, which is good.
Silly little online poll, but I think these things matters in shaping peoples’ attitudes.
handsmile
As of 9:36am Times/Free Press poll: “Should Komen cut grants to Planned Parenthood?”
58% No (106 votes)
41% Yes (76 votes)
1% Elvis [OK I’m making that part up]
Good on you Southern Beale for helping to turn the tide!
Maude
@PurpleGirl:
PP had already gotten $400 thousand hasn’t it?
Does that count or id Bloomberg saying after that amount he’ll fork over the donation?
Jay C
Heh – So the New York Times’ reporters finally got the point that there’s been a
nationwide firestormbit of criticism of the Susan G. Komen Foundation over its Planned Parenthood cutoff? Better late than never, I suppose: their first article yesterday was pretty bland: may someone at Gray Lady Acres actually surfs the Internet once in a while?But I agree that SGKF have stepped in the shit bigtime with this: however much spin they try to put on it, they’ve lost the PR battle going in (and Nancy Brinker’s snooty BS-mongering on YouTube can’t help: “Oh, no harm – They’ve made more money now!”. Srsly, Nancy?) – from now on, the narrative has been fixed, and anything the Komen Foundation can do will only be seen through the lens of “bowing to extremist pressure” and “playing politics with womens’ health issues”.
Good job, Nancy, Karen and the SGKF Board! In an attempt to “avoid controversy” you have:
1. Generated a gigantic amount of negative publicity for your organization.
2. Damaged your own “brand” by making it look like the tool of right-wing cranks.
3. Caused a massive national outpouring of sympathy and donations for your “victim” (PP)
4. Exposed the right-wing crusade against PP for the misogynistic crankery that it is
5. Probably reduced your own potential fundraising capabilities.
Is there some sort of Corporate Darwin Award they qualify for??
jjcomet
The gutless tools who run Komen have changed their story on this again. This morning on NPR, I heard a Komen spokesperson say that they decided to cut funding to PP as part of a program to direct funds to organizations “more directly involved in breast health.” In other words, either the story about shunning PP because it is under investigation is complete BS, or this latest explanation is complete BS. Either way, Komen is more than willing to lie to cover their asses with the political right. Which means the folks who run Komen not only don’t give a damn about the health of women, they are cowards as well.
Sparkatus
So, when are the Komen affiliates like those in CA and WA that have expressed their disagreement going to pull out and recreate a new organization, change the ribbon to the original salmon color and give Brinker and Handel a giant FU?
Seems it would be super easy, and Komen can’t have the rights to sponsored walks…Why reform an organization that pulls crap like this, just pull out and put your local group under a different umbrella? Perhaps PP in fact.
iceblue
The vote is now 260 votes. 38% yes (99 votes) 61% no (161 votes)
I would say you’ve caused a turnaround.
maya
@Jay C:
Yup, any fool can wear pink. Happens often when they don’t sort their laundry.
Mouse Tolliver
Also too. Karen Handel is a homophobic bigot. I’m sure everyone is shocked — SHOCKED! — to hear that. Why in the world would a supposedly apolitical organization put a rightwing ideologue in such a powerful position?
Interrobang
Hey Karen Handel — at least our side only throws political bombs. Your side has got some ‘splainin’ to do about those literal bombs, bitch. You’re a Christian, isn’t there something about removing the beam from your own eye before you attend to the mote in someone else’s?
Citizen Alan
Meanwhile … Jade Morey?!? Really? The tweet was originally from some Republican woman going by the name of Jade Morey?!? That sounds like an evil lesbian assassin who’s been sent to kill James Bond!
replicnt6
@Davis X. Machina:
Equality, yes. Inequality, no.
1 ne 2, 2 ne 1, but this does not imply that 1 ne 1.