The controversy over the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision to eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood—and subsequent reversal— continues. Catholic leaders are blasting the health reform requirement that insurance plans to cover contraceptives. Commentator Mark Shields joined other liberals in blasting the provision, saying it could have “cataclysmic” fallout for President Obama come November.
Numerous pundits have predicted that the requirement —and its narrow exemption for churches — will be a political liability for Obama. But where Shields sees “cataclysmic” fallout, the White House sees something quite different: a chance to widen the reproductive health debate beyond abortion to issues like contraceptives, winning over key demographics of independent voters in the process.
And that could explain why the White House, alongside the Obama campaign, has engaged eagerly on the issues. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in USA Today earlier this week, praising the new provision. The Obama campaign meanwhile hasn’t been shy either, drawing up an infographic praising the new regulation. While there are some signs of a potential compromise for religious groups, the White House has made it pretty clear it plans to stand firm behind the current regulation.
But while Catholic leadership has blasted the new regulation, polls show that a majority of Catholics are actually more supportive of the provision than the rest of the country. A poll out Tuesday from the Public Religion Research Institute finds 52 percent of Catholic voters agreed with the statement, “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.” That’s pretty much in line with overall support for the provision, which hovers at 55 percent - likely because Catholics use contraceptives at rates similar to the rest of Americans.
It was bad enough when CPAC recently allowed the wacko paleo-conservative John Birch Society to have an exhibit, but this year things are exponentially worse.
This year, the Conservative Political Action Conference, at which presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich will appear, is having a panel discussion featuring an overt racist and white nationalist: Peter Brimelow, founder of hate site VDARE.
12:30 The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity – Wilson C
Sponsored by: ProEnglish
Speakers: Robert Vandervoort, Executive Director, ProEnglish; John Derbyshire, contributing editor at National Review and author of We Are Doomed; Peter Brimelow, author of The Patriot Game: National Dreams and Political Realities and founder of VDARE.com; Dr. Serge Trifkovic, foreign affairs editor for Chronicles magazine; & Dr. Rosalie Porter, author of American Immigrant: My Life In Three Languages, chairwoman of the board, ProEnglish
I admit, this one kind of shocks me, and it's not easy to do that any more. I knew the right wing had gone bug-eyed loony, but this is way beyond the usual xenophobia and paranoid bigotry; this is open white nationalism at the Republican right's premier high-profile conference, in an election year. Stunning. Masks are dropping all over Wingnutland.
Here are some more details on Brimelow's vicious racial hatred, from Right Wing Watch:
VDARE is a White Nationalist website, run by Brimelow, which frequently publishes the works of anti-Semitic and racist writers and is named after Virginia Dare, who is believed to be the first child of English parents born in the Americas. Brimelow, an immigrant from Great Britain, expresses his fear of the loss of America’s white majority, blames non-white immigrants for social and economic problems and urges the Republican Party to give up on minority voters and focus on winning the white vote. He also said that a New York City subway is the same as an Immigration and Naturalization Service waiting room, “an underworld that is not just teeming but also almost entirely colored.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists VDARE as a White Nationalist hate group and notes that “VDARE.com’s archives contain articles like ‘Freedom vs. Diversity,’ ‘Abolishing America,’ ‘Anarcho-Tyranny — Where Multiculturalism Leads’ and ‘Why Immigrants Kill,’” compiled quotes from other VDARE writers that call the U.S. an exclusively white nation and denounce Jews for “weakening America’s historic White majority”:
"America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people, and what that means is that there is virtually no figure, no law, no policy, no event in the history of the old, white America that can survive the transition to the new and non-white version. Whether we will want to call the new updated version ‘America’ at all is another question entirely."
— Sam Francis, VDARE.com, July 21, 2003
"Jewish activity collectively, throughout history, is best understood as an elaborate and highly successful group competitive strategy directed against neighboring peoples and host societies. The objective has been control of economic resources and political power. One example: overwhelming Jewish support for non-traditional immigration, which has the effect of weakening America’s historic white majority."
— Kevin MacDonald, VDARE.com, Nov. 14, 2006
"What race realists find most infuriating about the liberalism of the last half century is not just that it has lost its instinctive appreciation for the culture and people of the West but actively, viciously attacks them. Whites are doing something no other people have ever done in human history. Our rulers and elites welcome replacement by aliens, they vilify our ancestors and their own, they sacrifice our interests to those of favored minorities, and they treat the entire history of the West as if it were a global plague of rapine and exploitation. This is a disease that is killing us, and we must fight it head on."
Rick Santorum's big wins last night in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri are important signs of the power of reactionary religious thinking in today's right wing.
Of all the candidates, Santorum is by far the most fanatical; he's absolutely opposed to all contraception, wants to see abortion made completely illegal, is anti-gay to an insane degree, and is a hard core creationist and global warming denier. He's the poster boy for Republican atavism, an anti-science avatar for the Tea Party set.
People like Rick Santorum are one of the major reasons why I had to make a public break with the right. They make America a laughing stock to the rest of the world with their backward, deliberately ignorant ideology. And that's why this coming Presidential election is so important. Blind fanatics like Santorum must not be allowed to gain access to the highest office in the United States.
Our new feature of the day has to do with comments; when you post a comment, your username is shown on the top line. This is how it's been at LGF for lo, these many years.
But now, you can actually change the name that shows up in your comment, by entering a new name for your "display name" in your Account Settings.
This means that anyone with an LGF account can now use almost any name they like when posting comments.
But you can still easily find out who's really behind that display name; just hover your mouse over it for a second or two and their real username will pop up. The real username is also shown in the Profile dialog box, when you click a user's icon.
Note that changing your display name will change what appears in all your comments; if you've posted a comment previously with a different display name, it will change when you change the name.
And just in case someone decides to abuse this feature and impersonate someone for less-than-groovy reasons, I've coded it so that I have a simple, one-click way to completely turn it off and show only real usernames again.
There's a primary election in Missouri, and caucuses tonight in Minnesota and Colorado, so here's a thread to keep up with news from the front lines; the Missouri primary just closed (at 8pm ET) so results should start to be available soon.
Right wing think tank the Heritage Foundation is blaring that "Obamacare" has awakened a sleeping giant:
It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target. But when that law eviscerates the very foundation of religious liberty in America as protected under the First Amendment, it should not be surprising that Catholics and Jews, evangelical Christians, and mainline Lutherans alike find common cause in defense of their liberties.
“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.
Already Archbishop Timothy Dolan has spoken out against the law and priests around the country have mobilized, reading letters from the pulpit. Donohue said Catholic officials will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.
“This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” Donohue said.
This is rather unfortunate, but what other choice does Obama have? If he doesn't deploy his own Super PACs (while never actually coordinating with them, wink), the gargantuan amounts of money the Republicans will throw into the race would give them an overwhelming advantage: We Will Not Play by Two Sets of Rules -- Blog -- Barack Obama.
The President opposed the Citizens United decision. He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view. He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections, a reform that was blocked in 2010 by a unanimous Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate. And the President favors action—by constitutional amendment, if necessary—to place reasonable limits on all such spending.
But this cycle, our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it currently stands.
Over the last few months, Super PACs affiliated with Republican presidential candidates have spent more than $40 million on television and radio, almost all of it for negative ads.
Last week, filings showed that the Super PAC affiliated with Mitt Romney's campaign raised $30 million in 2011 from fewer than 200 contributors, most of them from the financial sector. Governor Romney personally helped raise money for this group, which is run by some of his closest allies.
Meanwhile, other Super PACs established for the sole purpose of defeating the President—along with "nonprofits" that also aren't required to disclose the sources of their funding—have raised more than $50 million. In the aggregate, these groups are expected to spend half a billion dollars, above and beyond what the Republican nominee and party are expected to commit to try to defeat the President.
With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm.
Therefore, the campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC. We will do so only in the knowledge and with the expectation that all of its donations will be fully disclosed as required by law to the Federal Election Commission.
There's nothing else he can do. The Citizens United decision launched a political arms race among super-wealthy donors, to see who could control the US political system by writing the biggest check.
The Associated Press is reporting that the appeals court has ruled California's voter-approved ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, so we know what the next big right wing freak-out will be.
Republican anti-choice activist Karen Handel is resigning from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, with an angry statement defending her work against Planned Parenthood: Karen Handel Resigns From Komen for the Cure.
I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen’s mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants.
What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision – one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact – has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly.
Please note that in her statement, Handel is openly admitting that Planned Parenthood was deliberately targeted. This comes after many days of Komen Foundation officials denying that there was any specific intent to defund Planned Parenthood. The truth will eventually out.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney obviously understands which side his bread is buttered on: the religious right side.
When Minnesota radio host Scott Hennen asked Romney whether Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the leading U.S. anti-breast cancer charity, should continue to give Planned Parenthood grants for cancer screenings and mammogram referrals, Romney said, "I don't think so."
"I also feel that the government should cut off funding to Planned Parenthood," the former Massachusetts governor added. "Look, the idea that we're subsidizing an institution which is providing abortion, in my view, is wrong. Planned Parenthood ought to stand on their own feet, and should not get government subsidy."
Rick Santorum misses the days when women would die in horrible agony from having back-alley abortions. Ah, good times.
Look at what’s happened just in our tolerance for abortion. Fifty years ago...60 years ago, people who did abortions were in the shadows, people who were considered really bad doctors. Now, abortion is something to that is just accepted. [...] This is the erosion. And it happens in the medical profession. It happened very fast. And I think Obamacare will lead us down that road.
Rep. Fleming posted on Facebook an Onion story from last year on an "$8 billion Abortionplex" being built by Planned Parenthood, featuring restaurants, a nightclub, and a 10-screen multiplex theater. Along with the link to the article, Fleming commented:
More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale.
John Fleming, you are the LGF Derp of the Day.
(Except it's not really that funny to see a Congressman so blinded by animus toward Planned Parenthood that he'd accept such an obviously exaggerated satire as the real thing.)
In the Republican debates, Newt Gingrich is always the first to invoke the hallowed name of Ronald Reagan, taking credit for helping Reagan implement the foreign policy initiatives that led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
Flashback to 1986, as Newt gives a floor speech blasting Ronald Reagan for the "failure" of his foreign policy initiatives, and praising Democratic President Harry Truman for accomplishing much more in the same time period.
Hate group leader Pamela Geller is spewing insults at me again, for pointing out her disgusting exploitation of a murdered Muslim woman. As usual with right wing tirades, she attempts to reverse the reality and project her own illness onto me, accusing me of being "pro-jihad," of being a "misogynist in servitude to savages," and of "lying:" CHARLES JOHNSON, MISOGYNIST, OF LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS IN SERVITUDE TO SAVAGES!!!!!
I will not submit to the whitewashing and outright cover-up of honor killings in the West, despite the withering personal attacks on me.
That these monstrous crimes of murder do not unite rational men on the basis of sheer humanity is indicative of how debased and morally bankrupt the monsters on the left are. I hold them ultimately responsible. Devout Muslims who support or subscribe to religiously sanctioned gendercide are merely adhering to their faith. What's the left's excuse?
Imagine someone so twisted and dysfuntional [sic] that he would vilify those who are fighting against an ideology that oppresses, subjugates and slaughters women. Honor killings are a family affair, and there are as many accomplices as there are killers. Jessica Mokdad was subjected to years of strict religious punishment in that hellish house. Where was her mother? Who lured her back to that deadly house after she had run away?
The once fiercely counter-jihad now viciously pro-jihad Chuck Johnson is rabid with news of my human rights conference, mixing moral equivocation with good old-fashioned lies. Really nuts.
I/we asked the Hyatt for nothing. After they apologized profusely for canceling a Geller event in Sugar Land, Texas (the mistake of a weak, on-site tool), the Hyatt offered to give us space and pay for it at any of their hotels in America. I never bullied Hyatt. I never even contacted them.
Yes, she really did attack the mother of a murder victim.
There's no point in responding to her usual ad hominem vitriol, but it's almost comically simple to prove that Geller herself is lying when she says she didn't harass the Hyatt Hotel chain into appeasing her.
The truth is that Geller posted about the cancellation of her hatefest over and over and over, including the contact information for Hyatt Hotels and the email addresses and phone numbers of their executives, urging her Neanderthal readers to call and email many, many times. This is her modus operandi whenever someone does the right thing and renounces her bigotry -- she raises hell and calls out her deranged followers to harass them. And sometimes the target caves in, as the Hyatt's management apparently did this time.
UPDATE: I want to thank all of you: hundreds and hundreds of emails and phone calls were made to the Hyatt cowards (owned by Obama chief fundraiser, Penny Pritzker).
Earlier I reported that Hyatt Place Houston/Sugar Land prostrated themselves, wet their pants and cancelled tonight's event where I was scheduled to speak. In a stunning surrrender to Islamic supremacism, free speech suffered yet another setback.
Did you call and read them the first amendment? I urge all Atlas readers to boycott these sniveling cowards.
Mind you, where does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stay and entertain his murdering comrades when he comes to New York? The Hyatt.
Hyatt Place Houston/Sugar Land
16730 Creek Bend Drive
Sugar Land, TX 77478, USA
Phone: +1 281 491 0300 Fax: +1 281 491 0325
Farley Kern
Vice President, Corporate Communications
Tel: +1 312 780 5506
farley.kern@hyatt.com
Last week, The Hyatt Place hotel canceled a Sugarland Tea Party event because I was scheduled to speak. Hundreds and hundreds of patriots called, wrote (sold their stock), and the Hyatt Place subsequently apologized. ...
Now Hutton Hotel in Nashville has banned this speech as well. Let them know what you think of that:
Steve Eckley's phone number is 720-318-4238
Hutton Hotel Tel: 615-340-9333, Fax: 615-340-0010
Obviously, when Geller claims that neither she nor her followers ever bullied or even contacted the Hyatt Hotel chain, she's simply lying through her teeth.
Back to today's tirade, there's a ritual that must be followed whenever one of these "anti-jihad" lunatics attacks me -- it's very important to them to assure each other that no one ever reads Little Green Footballs anyway, and no one takes me seriously. Oh yes, and I'm "evil" too.
I am always surprised when someone sends me a link from the green swamp. No one reads this boil on the ass of the blogsophere anymore, but look what's become of him. Once the pre-eminent blog on the right, the now notorious leftwing troll is mocking the fight for the right to live and live freely as a "ghoulish obsession": Pamela Geller's Ghoulish Obsession With 'Honor Killings' Takes an Ugly Turn. Fighting to save girls' lives is a "ghoulish obsession." I guess CJ would call Elie Wiesel's work on the Holocaust a "ghoulish obsession." Or any human rights group or anti-torture organization -- do they have "ghoulish obessions," too?
Does this not mirror the malevolent smear campaign waged by the Johnson back in 2009, when I was raising money to get a tombstone for honor killing victim Aqsa Parvez? Little Green Footballs -- How Not to Memorialize Aqsa Parvez -- he called it "one of the most disgusting publicity stunts I think I’ve ever heard of."
Evil.
And although no one takes this tool seriously anymore (he was us, now he's them, tomorrow he is Gregor Samsa), it is illustrative of the left's canny ability to paint good as evil. "Ghoulish obsession" -- think about that.
Thanks to Ms Geller for reminding me about her exploitation of Aqsa Parvez -- that was indeed another sickening example of Geller battening onto a family's grief like a vampire, to promote her hateful anti-Muslim agenda. She's been at this ghoulish work for years.
Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question. Judgments about former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who denounced Romney on Saturday night in Nevada, are about 3 to 1 negative.
Meanwhile, the president’s recent remarks are better reviewed. Among the roughly 6 in 10 Americans who heard or read about the president’s State of the Union address, 57 percent say they approve of most of what he laid out.
This year for the first time, you can watch the Super Bowl online at NBC Sports. It requires Microsoft Silverlight, and has a neat picture-in-picture feature that lets you switch between different camera views, including an aerial view of the field.
The game starts at 6pm ET, so in the meantime here's the Volkswagen Super Bowl ad...
The Las Vegas Sun reports that voter turnout for the Nevada caucuses was very low, despite the Republican Party's constant fear-mongering and attacks on President Obama.
Something's going wrong with the GOP strategy of demonization and Tea Party ultra-conservatism; I suspect the toxic atmosphere of the far right is beginning to turn off center right Republicans, and that could spell big trouble for the GOP in the general election.
Mitt Romney’s easy victory in Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses might, in the long run, be less important than the fact that a surprising number of Republicans who could have participated Saturday chose to stay home.
Republicans’ disappointing turnout foreshadows difficulty energizing GOP voters in Nevada, a key swing state in November’s general election.
Turnout was unlikely to match 2008, when 44,000 Republicans participated in Nevada’s caucuses. Complete figures were not released by the state party as of 10 p.m. Saturday, an indication of a lackluster showing.
“It was less than what we had planned for,” Clark County caucus Director Michael Chamberlain said on KNPR.
Republican turnout in Washoe County, Nevada’s second largest, was 8 percent, well below the 20 percent some had predicted.
“We expected more. Obviously we hoped for more,” David Buell, chairman of the Washoe County Republican Party, said.
Here's an open thread to keep up on news from the Nevada GOP caucuses, in which Mitt Romney is expected to thoroughly trounce Newt "Poor Kids Make Great Janitors" Gingrich.
Ron "I Can't Help It If White Supremacists Dig Me" Paul, for some reason, seems confident that he'll beat Gingrich for second place.
If you're on Twitter, statewide vote totals are being tweeted by @NVGOP...
Anti-Muslim hate group leader Pamela Geller has seized on the murder of a 20-year old Muslim woman in Michigan, labeled it an "honor killing," and is now planning to hold a "conference" using the murdered woman's name -- against the wishes of the woman's family, and even though both the family and the prosecutor in the case say it was the act of an abusive stepfather, not an "honor killing" at all. And to make it even more disgusting, Geller is calling her hatefest a "human rights conference."
It's hard to imagine someone so twisted and dysfunctional that they'd intrude on a family's grief over a murdered child, and use the victim's name against the family's wishes. But Geller is defiantly determined to exploit this murder for all the bigoted hatred she can wring out of it: Slain Woman's Name on 'Human Rights' Conference Upsets Her Family.
Jessica's murder made international headlines. She left Minnesota to escape an allegedly physically and mentally abusive stepfather, but in April of 2011, her stepfather, Rahim Alfatlawi, drove from Minnesota to her grandmother's Warren home and shot her in the head.
Her family calls it an awful tragedy, but others are calling it an honor killing.
"We know that this is a practice under Islamic law. The honor killing is the final act. People know very little of the terror ... that these girls live under," said Pamela Geller.
She is the head of Stop the Islamization of America. Geller is hosting a conference on the anniversary of Jessica's death in Dearborn. It's called the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference.
"We cannot sanction this gendercide. We cannot sanction the diminishment and dehumanization of women. We must speak up," Geller said.
We asked Jessica's stepmother, Cassandra Mokdad, whether her murder was an honor killing. "Absolutely it was not," she said. She told us this disgusting act had nothing to do with Islam, a religion she said Jessica practiced proudly.
"It was nothing about religion or anything. It was just about a sick human being," Mohammed Mokdad said.
"He wanted to have a relationship with Jessica as more than her stepfather. He wanted to have a more romantic relationship with her," Cassandra Mokdad explained.
"She's using Jessica as her poster child for anti-Islam." Even the Macomb County Prosecutor on the case said Alfatlawi murdered Jessica because he was obsessed with her, not the religion, and Jessica's family wants her name taken off the conference.
"She's using Jessica as her poster child for anti-Islam," said Cassandra Mokdad.
"What gulls me is that there is this prohibition on discussing it and the ideology that inspires honor killings," Geller explained.
She said this conference will happen and the name won't be changed.
"We're definitely going to have this conference and it will not be stopped. Their directing their barbs at me. I didn't kill Jessica. I'm trying to save the next girl. They should be helping me save the next girl," said Geller.
"Absolutely I'll go. I won't let her sit there and misuse Jessica's name, and I will let her know exactly how I feel," Cassandra Mokdad told us.
But wait -- the story gets even more repellent, because Geller and her followers bullied and harassed the management of the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn, Michigan into giving her a conference room for free to hold this ugly hatefest, after they canceled a previous Geller hatefest. Unbelievable.
Here's a page with contact info for the Dearborn Hyatt, if you'd like to let the management know how you feel about this disgusting event: Detroit Metro Hotel - Detroit Michigan Hotels - Hyatt Regency Dearborn. They backed down and tried to appease Geller, and as a result she's now using their facilities to exploit a murdered woman's name to spread hatred.
The ideological bent of Komen Foundation public policy VP Karen Handel really becomes clear in this 2010 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the topic of gay marriage and adoption, in which she says she favors outlawing gay adoptions: Handel Says Gay Parents Not as 'Legitimate' as Hetero Ones.
Q: Do you view committed gay relationships as being less legitimate than committed heterosexual relationships?
A: As a Christian, I view relationships and marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Q: But what about the legitimacy of the relationship? Do you have any gay friends? Do you know gay couples?
A: Of course I do. Are we going to spend our whole day talking on this issue?
Q: I want to know how you feel about this.
A: I’ve been very clear. And you know, as a Christian, marriage is between a man and a woman. I do not think that gay relationships are — they are not what God intended. And that’s just my viewpoint on it. Others might disagree with that. But I would also hope that if you look at what is happening in our state, we’ve got issues we need to be focused on in Georgia . We have a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. And it’s something that I supported wholeheartedly. We have that, and let’s get dealing with the other issues that we also need to deal with in Georgia. And the press can help with that. (Laughs).
Q: Frequently, folks in the Legislature kind of threaten to — there are always rumblings in the Legislature that they may outlaw gay adoptions. You’re against gay adoption.
A: I am against gay adoption. But remember — I mean, if there is legislation on that, certainly I will follow that and look at it. But in the end, ultimately courts are going to be the ones to have to make the decision on that and it’s always in the best interests of the child. Do I think that gay parents is in the best interest of the child? No. But we do have our court system that deals with many and most of those issues.
Q: Would you favor outlawing gay adoptions?
A: Yeah, I would consider that, absolutely.
Q: Do you know any gay couples with children?
A: Not that I’m aware of.
Q: So you think gay couples are less qualified to function as parents than straight couples?
A: I think that for a child to be in a household — in a family in a household with a situation where the parents are not married, as in one man and one woman, is not the best household for a child.
Q: Is it better or worse than a single parent household?
A: Doug, I’m really trying to be straightforward with you but I’m not going to debate all the nuances. I’ve made it abundantly clear that I think that marriage is between a man and a woman. And that’s what I believe, and I don’t know what more you would like me to add to that.
Q: I guess I want to know why you think gay parents aren’t as legitimate as heterosexual parents.
Mona Charen of the National Review Online lamented that “it’s extremely disappointing that Komen has caved” but “it’s hardly surprising given the onslaught they’ve endured over the course of the last few days,” and NRO’s Daniel Foster charged Planned Parenthood with “gangsterism.” Of course, just days prior Kathryn Jean Lopez on NRO hailed Komen’s initial decision as a major victory, noting “this Komen-Planned Parenthood relationship has long been a target of pro-life activists.”
Catholic Family and Human Rights Initiative (C-Fam) president Austin Ruse told LifeSiteNews called potentially successful effort to have the Komen foundation reverse their decision defunding Planned Parenthood a “mafia shakedown”:
Pro-life leaders say that the exact import of the statement is not yet clear, and that Komen seems to be asking for breathing room, possibly with the intention of caving in definitively to pro-abortion pressure.
Austin Ruse of C-Fam told LifeSiteNews.com Friday morning that, “The mafia shakedown tactics may have worked, but we’re not sure.”
Ruse advised that pro-lifers should “take a wait and see attitude” to discern whether the pro-abortion pushback against Komen would succeed.
Kristen Walker of Live Action called it a “terrible shame that Komen has caved in to political pressure from pro-abortion fanatics who demand obeisance to Planned Parenthood” and wondered what will happen to all the money people gave to Komen to reward them for dropping Planned Parenthood:
If raising money to cure breast cancer were their primary concern, they would not have reversed this decision. Their donations went up 100% in the short time since they announced the halting of grants to PP as pro-lifers who have refused to donate to Komen opened their wallets to thank them for their decision, happy to finally be able to give to their good work of fighting breast cancer with a clear conscience. I wonder if Komen has given any thought to the fact that those people gave money in good faith believing it wouldn’t be used to fund abortions. Will they refund that money? I guess we’ll see.
...
It is a terrible shame that Komen has caved in to political pressure from pro-abortion fanatics who demand obeisance to Planned Parenthood. It is a terrible shame they’re allowing PP and its followers to compromise their mission to cure breast cancer.
Evangelist Bill Keller warned that the latest move by the Komen foundation may well lead to “the wrath and punishment of God unleashed on this wicked nation at any moment”:
Keller said, "It only shows the level of spiritual decay in this nation when a private foundation who made a decision to stop giving money to the world's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, causes the media, politicians, and the supporters of killing babies to go into a wild frenzy. The Catholic Church has always stood for the sanctity of life, yet Catholics like Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and MSNBC's Chris Matthews, were livid that the Komen Foundation decided to stop giving a $250,000 annual grant to Planned Parenthood."
...
Keller concluded, "You don't have to be a Biblical scholar to know that we are on the verge of seeing the wrath and punishment of God unleashed on this wicked nation at any moment. Every 24 hours we slaughter approximately 4,000 innocent babies. Where is the outrage about that in the media, in the halls of Congress? Sadly, society doesn't even give it a second thought and has fully embraced this 'culture of death' which hangs over this nation like a black cloud."
Judging from the statement they released, Planned Parenthood seems to believe the Komen Foundation will restore their funding for breast cancer screening.
I just got off the phone with a Komen board member, and he confirmed that the announcement does not mean that Planned Parenthood is guaranteed future grants — a demand he said would be “unfair” to impose on Komen. He also said the job of the group’s controversial director, Nancy Brinker, is safe, as far as the board is concerned.
As some were quick to point out, the statement put out by Komen doesn’t really clarify whether Planned Parenthood will actually continue to get money from the group. The original rationale for barring Planned Parenthood was that it was under investigation (a witch-hunt probe undertaken by GOP Rep Cliff Stearns). Komen said today that the group would “amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.”
Does that mean Planned Parenthood will get Komen grants in the future?
I asked Komen board member John Raffaelli to respond to those who are now saying that the announcement doesn’t necessarily constitute a reversal until Planned Parenthood actually sees more funding. He insisted it would be unfair to expect the group to commit to future grants.
“It would be highly unfair to ask us to commit to any organization that doesn’t go through a grant process that shows that the money we raise is used to carry out our mission,” Raffaelli told me. “We’re a humaniatrian organization. We have a mission. Tell me you can help carry out our mission and we will sit down at the table.”
Pushed on whether this means the new announcement wasn’t really a reversal, Raffaelli pushed back, arguing that Komen, in response to all the criticism, had removed politics from the grant-making process. “Is it really unclear that we’re changing the policy to address criticism?” he said.
Notice: Komen board member John Raffaelli is explicitly admitting that the decision to cut off Planned Parenthood was politically driven.
Apparently, the people in charge of merchandising at the Susan G. Komen Foundation had a little talk with their anti-abortion executives, and today the Komen Foundation is reinstating their Planned Parenthood funding, and apologizing to Planned Parenthood and the American public.
Planned Parenthood has released the following statement in response:
“The outpouring of support for women in need of lifesaving breast cancer screening this week has been astonishing and is a testament to our nation's compassion and sincerity.
“During the last week, millions spontaneously joined a national conversation about lifesaving breast cancer prevention care and reinforced shared values about access to health care for all. This compassionate outcry in support of those most in need rose above political, ideological, and cultural divides, and will surely be recognized as one of our nation's better moments during a contentious political time. Planned Parenthood thanks each and every person who has contributed to elevating the importance of breast cancer prevention for so many women in need.
“In recent weeks, the treasured relationship between the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and Planned Parenthood has been challenged, and we are now heartened that we can continue to work in partnership toward our shared commitment to breast health for the most underserved women. We are enormously grateful that the Komen Foundation has clarified its grantmaking criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders and volunteers. What these past few days have demonstrated is the deep resolve all Americans share in the fight against cancer, and we honor those who are at the helm of this battle.
“Planned Parenthood has been a trusted partner with the Komen Foundation in early cancer detection and prevention services. In particular, Planned Parenthood helps the Komen Foundation reach vulnerable populations — low-income women, African-American women, and Latinas — especially in rural areas and underserved communities where Planned Parenthood health centers are their only source of health care. With Komen Foundation grants, over the past five years, Planned Parenthood health centers provided nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and more than 6,400 mammogram referrals. With the outpouring of support over the past week, even more women in need will receive lifesaving breast cancer care.”
But the Komen Foundation has done enormous damage to their reputation, and it's going to be difficult for them to gain back the trust they've lost -- especially since they still have not acknowledged that anti-Planned Parenthood politics played a large part in their decision to cut off funding in the first place.
As you might expect, this news has driven right wing bloggers into a state of apoplectic rage. A look at the crazed wingnut reactions:
The Komen Foundation continues to deny that anti-abortion politics was responsible for their original decision to defund Planned Parenthood, but the right wing blogs and media seem to have no doubt that it was.
Today at the far right fever swamp known as Free Republic, somebody posted a link to our latest article about Ron Paul's connections to the white supremacist subculture, which led to an amusing and revealing sequence of comments.
First, the wingnuts tried to argue that associating with neo-Nazis might not be so bad, and might even be necessary to "turn this country around."
So what. Obama publicly talks to La Raza, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the NAACP.
February 2, 2012 1:48:07 PM PST by Bryanw92 (The solution to fix Congress: Nuke em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure!)
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“anti-fascist” wing
They gonna hack obozo’s websites next?
February 2, 2012 1:48:17 PM PST by dynachrome ("Our forefathers didn't bury their guns. They buried those that tried to take them.")
[...]
I don’t require hackers to reveal to me that Ron Paul is associated with neo-nazis or neo-fascists. This has been pretty common knowledge around Texas for years and those are the kind of people in his district that keep electing him and supporting him. But what the hell? Maybe we will need that to turn this country around.
February 2, 2012 1:57:31 PM PST by Jukeman (God help us for we are deep in trouble.)
Then, when it finally sank in that they were talking about an article at Little Green Footballs, they dropped this uncomfortable line of discussion and united to attack their common enemy instead:
Let’s keep this an LGF-free site.
No conservative goes there anymore.
February 2, 2012 1:59:55 PM PST by Doulos1 (Bitter Clinger Forever!)
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LGF! My goodness I would rather be Hillary’s towel boy than see Freepers linking LGF!!
February 2, 2012 2:05:11 PM PST by kreitzer
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Little Green Footballs? lol
12 posted on February 2, 2012 2:09:47 PM PST by jpsb
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I’ll put more credence in this when it’s reported somewhere other than LGF.
February 2, 2012 2:16:23 PM PST by Keith in Iowa (Willard Romney, purveyor of the world's finest bullmitt. | FR Class of 1998 |)
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Why are you posting stuff from LGF? You might as well post from Daily Kos or DU.
February 2, 2012 2:28:59 PM PST by Cymbaline ("Allahu Akbar": Arabic for "Nothing To See Here" - Mark Steyn)
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LGF? I hear “Socialist Worker’s Daily” has some interesting pieces, too.
February 2, 2012 3:57:32 PM PST by BfloGuy (The final outcome of the credit expansion is general impoverishment.)
Looks like Nevada Republicans are starting to get used to the idea of holding their noses and taking their Mitt Romney medicine: Romney Poised to Roll, Poll Shows.
A new poll shows Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney headed for a blowout victory Saturday in Nevada's GOP caucuses.
Romney wins support from 45 percent of Nevada Republicans who said they plan to participate in the caucuses, the survey commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and 8NewsNow said.
Those who self-identify as "Tea Party" pod people are hanging tough with Newt, against the odds, fighting the good fight like our founding fathers would have, tricorne hats and all.
Newt Gingrich is Romney's closest threat with 25 percent backing, thanks in large part to Republicans who say they "strongly support" the tea party movement.
This video is titled "Straight Talk from Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, Founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen," the official response to the outrage that followed the Komen Foundation's defunding of Planned Parenthood breast cancer screening programs.
Brinker says their grants to Planned Parenthood were canceled because they have "new standards," which for unstated reasons excluded Planned Parenthood.
Notice: she says all this without once mentioning the words, "Planned Parenthood." And she never explains how Planned Parenthood failed to meet their "new standards."
In the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg has a piece on the controversy, citing three sources within the Komen Foundation who say the "new standards" were adopted specifically to give their anti-abortion VP for public policy, Karen Handel, an excuse to cut off Planned Parenthood: Top Susan G. Komen Official Resigned in Protest Over Planned Parenthood Cave-In.
An entirely avoidable, and deeply regrettable, controversy has been raging this week over the decision by the (formerly highly esteemed) Susan G. Komen For the Cure foundation, the world’s leading breast-cancer research advocacy group, to cut its support for Planned Parenthood, which used Komen dollars (about $600,000 annually) to pay for breast-screening exams for poor people. (The Atlantic’s Nicholas Jackson has an excellent summary of the controversy so far.)
Komen, the marketing juggernaut that brought the world the ubiquitous pink ribbon campaign, says it cut-off Planned Parenthood because of a newly adopted foundation rule prohibiting it from funding any group that is under formal investigation by a government body. (Planned Parenthood is being investigated by Rep. Cliff Stearns, an anti-abortion Florida Republican, who says he is trying to learn if the group spent public money to provide abortions.)
But three sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut-off Planned Parenthood. (Komen gives out grants to roughly 2,000 organizations, and the new “no-investigations” rule applies to only one so far.) The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization’s new senior vice-president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is “pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.” (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.) I’ve tried to reach Handel for comment, and will update this post if I speak with her.
Three sources told me the organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood.
