Tsk, what a shame

And the beat-down goes on at Komen for the Cure.  Well, what did they expect? That’s just what happens when you let fetus fetishists run the show:

Two top executives at Susan G. Komen for the Cure have announced their resignation, amid reports that the breast cancer charity is struggling to raise money and repair its reputation after its decision to defund Planned Parenthood and subsequent reversal. [...]

A Komen insider told HuffPost that “employee morale is in the toilet” since Komen leadership made the controversial decision to defund Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s most prominent women’s health and family planning organizations. The move was led by anti-abortion executive Karen Handel, then Komen’s senior vice president for public policy, who has since resigned.

Sad but true: the only kind of enterprises that prosper when anti-abortion headcases are permitted to run mad-dog loose and impose their repugnant values on policymaking are the kind that exist primarily to promote fetus fetishizing.   In any other venue these people are a freaking disaster, fetus fetishism not being a business philosophy that translates well into the mainstream.

Live & Learn!  And other charities… take note.

 

Shakedown!

I guess Karen Handel has never heard about the First Rule of Holes — when you’re in one, 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. [...]

“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.”

I love the smell of Righteous Indignation in the morning.  Smells like… BULLSHIT.

Seriously: a “premeditated, orchestrated attack” by Planned Parenthood?  A “shakedown”??

How is that even possible?  The shit didn’t hit the fan until after Komen made the announcement about cutting PP’s funding, and even then it was largely an outraged, spontaneous grassroots response on social media.   (It was in fact a glorious testimony to the mountain-moving power of the Internets in the hands of Angry Citizens.)

Sorry Karen, but everyone knows what happened here and no amount of demented, bizarro-world tap-dancing will change it.  The sad and sorry little factoid that defunding Planned Parenthood has been your “signature issue” since, like, forever (or at least long before you infested the Komen organization) is what they refer to in poker as “the tell“.

In that spirit, I’ll see your phony shakedown and raise you a live one:

The Komen Decision that was Totally Not Political

…but was secretly nurtured and guided by former Bush Press Secretary and Planned Parenthood critic Ari Fleisher:

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, secretly helped guide Komen Foundation’s disastrous strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Hm.  This is starting to get like drawing back a glittery curtain of sequins and pink chiffon, only to find a load of maggot-infested manure steaming away behind it.  What next from this supposedly apolitical, non-partisan charity?  Or are they some kind of right-wing anti-choice PAC?

Is it time to take a look at their tax-exempt status?

#WINNING(?)

Well, maybe.

At least consider the Komen controversy well and truly #occupied:

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation backed down from its decision to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and birth control services, a move that had thrust the world’s largest breast cancer charity into a deeply politicized controversy.

Komen faced a massive outcry from its own supporters as well as Planned Parenthood’s, who believed Komen had came under pressure from anti-abortion activists.

“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,” Komen said in a statement on Friday signed by its board of directors and its founder Nancy Brinker.

Brinker: take your fauxpology and stuff it.  The walkback is only the beginning of Step One (and it remains to be seen if the funding will actually materialize).  Step Two: Clean House.

Your choice of VP, the repulsive Karen Handel, who retweets things like this:

…and any of the other woman-hating fetus fetishists (and bigots)  who’ve undoubtedly infested the upper levels of Komen will try this again if they’re left in positions of responsibility.  They are all in dire need a gold-plated, pink-ribbon-festooned, frozen steel-toed boot to the ass, el pronto.  If they love fetuses so much more than women, let them spend their time riding around in a fetusmobile©®™, not sucking back huge amounts of unwitting donor dollars from a breast cancer charity that they treacherously use to devise sleazy ways to jack women around.

Komen has fucked up royally: I for one will never donate to them again because I simply can’t trust them.  Certainly not as long as people like the putrid Handel are on board.  That an organization whose slogan is “Dedicated to a world without breast cancer” would put anti-choice ideology before women’s heath is absolutely unthinkable.  That the likes of Handel will try it again is inevitable.

Winning?  We’ll see.  Believe me, we’ll be watching.  When Karen Handel gets the gold-plated Boot, I’ll be the first to tweet her a  sympathetic “Cry me a freaking river”.

The Personal gets Political

Nearly two dozen US Senators have signed onto a letter urging the Susan G Komen Foundation to reverse its despicable and sleazy Planned Parenthood decision:

The pressure on the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation to reverse its decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings for poor people — a decision which has caused an uproar among women’s groups and on social media — is about to get significantly more intense. Nearly two dozen Senators are set to enter the fray.

I’m told that 22 Dem Senators have signed on to a toughly worded letter urging Komen to reverse its decision, which Komen has justified by citing a new rule prohibiting it from funding any group under investigation by the government. (This has conferred legitimacy and signficance on the probe into Planned Parenthood that has been launched by anti-abortion GOP Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida.)

Komen started this by besmirching the breast cancer issue with the foul, anti-choice ideology of a few who’ve infested their top policy-making ranks.  Now they’ve got a public relations nightmare on their hands that won’t end until they reverse the Planned Parenthood decision and clean house of those who initiated it.

Newsflash, fetus fetishists: cancer doesn’t give a shit if you’re “pro-life”.

UPDATE:  Yeah, and this:

(tweet from silvermaneman)

All About the Timing

The movie “Pink Ribbons“, which explores breast cancer fundraising by groups like Susan G Komen, is being released tomorrow.  Komen’s decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood has been in the works for some time now; one top Komen official quit over it in December.

As Dave suggests, the Komen Foundation had to know “Pink Ribbons”, a decidedly negative take on the breast cancer fundraising industry,  was coming out this week.  At first blush it would seem like the worst possible time for them to make the public aware of their decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, given the absolute certainty of a widespread negative response… or is it?

Why would Susan G Komen wait until this week to make this announcement?  Because it would be irresponsible not to speculate, have at it in the comments.

Meanwhile, here’s the trailer for “Pink Ribbons”, coming soon (tomorrow) to a theatre near you.

UPDATE:  Haha.  A girl and her Photoshop go horribly wrong.

#Occupy The Cure

I’ve either got the flu or I’m nauseated by the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood fiasco.

I’ll take Door #2, SGK/PP, for $200 — the donation that will now go fucking directly to Planned Parenthood since Komen made the ill-advisedly cruel decision to acquiesce to the ideological pressure of fetus fetishists on its board and cut funding ties with Planned Parenthood (Komen: do not pass GO, do NOT collect MY $200).

As a breast cancer survivor, I can’t even begin to describe how upset I am by the idea that an organization I *thought* was a friend to women like me would turn on us like a mad dog.

The notion that there are women — waitresses and cashiers and in this economy, unemployed — who will now be unable to get breast screening because they rely on Planned Parenthood for such services, and who might in fact DIE because of Komen’s decision, is more horrific to me than anyone could imagine.  I was a waitress just barely getting by when I was diagnosed: if I’d had to pay for that fateful mammogram, I wouldn’t have been diagnosed, I would have been dead.

Apparently I am not alone in feeling this way.  Surfing the twit machine between bouts of nausea — Komenausea? — last night, I saw this outstanding example of People Power: some enterprising pro-choice hacker hit the Komen website and “edited” one of its ads.  The original:

Which through the magic of technology became the New & Improved:

Ain’t technology wonderful?  Occupy the Cure!

UPDATE:  Regarding Komen’s “new rule” of prohibiting funding of any group being investigated by the government (no matter how lame and ideologically-driven the investigation), this is interesting:

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.

No, really??

(Screenshot courtesy of The General on Twitter)