The Urban Politician

Without irony: Rick Santorum edition

jreid — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:41:29 +0000

…They’re folks who have tried to use their power to force people to do things that they believe they should do and that are right…

– Rick Santorum on ~~his desire to have the government force women to give birth, because he thinks that’s the right thing to do~~ the Obama administration “forcing” religious organizations to offer birth control in the health plans they provide their employees:

Iconic Super Bowl XLVI photo: Rush in the Patriots box, digging for nasal gold

jreid — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:08:49 +0000

All you need to know about this year’s Super Bowl is that the Giants beat the Patriots, and the Patriots’ owners decided to invite Rush Limbaugh to their skybox in Indianapolis … where he was caught in camera picking his nose. Heh.

Story here.

President Obama Will Be Vindicated

Frank Schaeffer — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:24:00 +0000

As Ryan Lizza writes in the New Yorker: “Obama didn’t remake Washington. But his first two years stand as one of the most successful legislative periods in modern history. Among other achievements, he has saved the economy from depression, passed universal health care, and reformed Wall Street.”

So when are President Obama’s critics, people like Paul Krugman and Mitt Romney, going to offer President Obama an apology? Both have often loudly predicted that he made the economy worse and was putting America on the wrong economic path. Both are being proved wrong by the economic comeback we are in. I mention them not to pick on Krugman, who I respect or even on Romney (who I regard as a vapid twit bought and paid for by corporate interests) but to make a point: President Obama is going to have the last laugh on his critics, no matter what ideological spectrum they hail from.

President Obama is succeeding in spite of the fact that he’s been up against a Republican Party willing to destroy the economy in order to destroy him.

As the New Yorker notes:

“Two well-known Washington political analysts, Thomas Mann, of the bipartisan Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agree. In a forthcoming book about Washington dysfunction, ‘It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,’ they write, ‘One of our two major parties, the Republicans, has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.’”

We all know the Right’s critique of the President has failed. Rush Limbaugh did not get his wish! But what of the Left? The tone of the criticism of the President on lefty blogs has been persistently negative and none too prescient. According to his critics on the Left President Obama “sold out to Wall Street.” He didn’t “bring the change he promised,” he “is just like the Republicans,” etc., etc.

And I’m not even counting the shrillest voices on the Left and Right who have accused President Obama of either/or undermining national security — by being a “secret terror-codling Muslim” — or using drones to “murder civilians,” because “he is just like the Republicans and part of the corporatist elite.”

I happen to be a white 59-year-old former Republican. I happen to be a former religious right leader who came to my senses in the mid 1980s and quit the hate and fear religious right machine. (I explain about why I left the religious right in my book Crazy For God.) I also happen to have been one of the most vocal (and one of the first) Huffington Post bloggers. I was blogging there when we emailed in blogs then were called by the person who posted them. I supported then Senator Obama, just about every week during the Democratic primary season in 08. Back then I had lots of company at HP from the top down. It seemed we were all rooting for Obama.

Not anymore. I still blog at HP and other sites like Alternet but have actually been kicked off several progressive sites for continuing to support the president. (No kidding.)

About 6 months into his presidency lots of bloggers at HP and elsewhere seemed to run out of patience not just with President Obama but with reality itself. President Obama “disappointed” them. I stuck with the President because I believed then, and believe now, that he is smarter, kinder, more reliable and morally superior to his critics let alone to the political alternatives. I also know that the presidency is not as powerful as many people seem to think it is including many liberal commentators who claim to live in a fact-based world. I’m grateful if any president can get anything good done at all.

The Left and Right have united in predicting President Obama’s failure and even seeming to root for it, if nothing else to prove they were right. So will the “sky is falling” prophets of doom on the Left and Right — who have made it a national pastime to predict the “failure” of the Obama presidency — start to climb down now that all their dire predictions are falling flat re the economy (that Obama did not ruin!) and wars ending (that Obama did not start!)?

The wars are ending and the economy is coming back. Good for the country. Bad for the doom pundits of the Left and Right.

Anyone who thinks Obama didn’t “bring change” fast enough is living in a fact-free dreamland. First, they have no to little idea about how limited the president’s powers are. Second, they have no idea what this president in particular faced. We’ll get the change promised but it will take 2 full terms and it will never live up to the expectations of the utopian groupies of the Left who thought they’d voted for a messiah not a mere president.

So why has change taken “so long”?

Because:

President Obama inherited a far bigger economic and foreign policy mess than anyone predicted….
The Republicans obstructed our first black president far more ruthlessly (and with racist overtones) than any (sane) person would have predicted…
President Obama’s “friends” on the Left were as shortsighted and mean-spirited as his enemies on the Right…
And until the Occupy Wall Street Movement came along the President wasn’t getting the help he needed from the street to make the unfairness of American life that he’s trying to fix into an issue.

The President – thanks to Occupy Wall Street – now controls the debate with the handy phrase of “the 1% v the 99%.” Occupy Wall Street did more for moving the country foreword and did more to help President Obama, than all the President’s lefty critics combined.

Occupy Wall Street is doing what MLK and the civil rights movement did for Johnson: it provided the heat Johnson could then use to move his agenda forward. Obama too now has the wind of change at his back.

Sure, I like anyone else wish for more action from the President on many fronts. For instance I wish the President had not been so in love with the idea that we could be moving into a post-partisan world of cooperation.

New Yorker put it

“Predictions that Obama would usher in a new era of post-partisan consensus politics now seem not just naïve but delusional. At this political juncture, there appears to be only one real model of effective governance in Washington: partisan dominance, in which a President with large majorities in Congress can push through an ambitious agenda… Many of Obama’s liberal allies have been disillusioned, too. When Steve Jobs last met the President, in February, 2011, he was most annoyed by Obama’s pessimism—he seemed to dismiss every idea Jobs proffered. ‘The president is very smart,’ Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. ‘But he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done. It infuriates me.’ “Yet our political system was designed to be infuriating. As George Edwards notes in his study of Presidents as facilitators, the American system “is too complicated, power too decentralized, and interests too diverse for one person, no matter how extraordinary, to dominate.” Obama, like many Presidents, came to office talking like a director. But he ended up governing like a facilitator, which is what the most successful Presidents have always done. Even Lincoln famously admitted, ‘I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events controlled me.’”

Given my religious right background I’m one of the President’s most unlikely fans. Maybe that’s because I really know the alternative– from the inside. I fear the alternative to the President – far right loons of the Tea Party/evangelical religious right ilk — and have never felt I had the luxury of being an armchair lefty critic demoralizing Obama’s supporters because he’s the only person who stands between the village idiots and us.

Try Romney and the Mormons on for size if you think Obama has been “slow” to embrace gay marriage! Try Gingrich and the “Christian Zionists” if you think we tilted too far to the far right West Bank settlers and Israeli hardliners! Try the Koch brothers’ cronies if you think our president is “owned by Wall Street!”

I know what the stakes are. I know from the inside just how deranged, corrupt and awful the marriage between Wall Street and the unwashed Tea Party/Religious Right anti-abortion, racist, homophobic and misogynist mob really is. I know that these people will buy elections then try and turn America into a theocracy — on matters of personal morality — and into an Ayn Rand libertarian and heartless swamp where the 1% eat the rest of us– when it comes to the economy.

So I’ve been grateful that a man of integrity, brains and kindness and reasonable moderation (not to mention moderate progressive religious faith) is leading America. I didn’t just read about the alternative and “other” side. I was the other side and know what they are capable of.

When we hear that jobless numbers are going down faster than expected, that shoppers spent money over the holidays, that economic forecasts are being revised upward, that we are out of Iraq, that bin Laden is dead, that gays can serve in the military, that Wall Street and the banks are now under investigation, that a woman’s right to choose is being protected… it’s time for a reassessment of the President’s critic’s.

And NO I’m NOT saying that any president is above rebuke when you think he’s wrong. But fair rebuke is one thing. The endless drip, drip of mindless “disappointed” negativity that has been the hallmark not just of Fox News but has been found on progressive blogs too, is another thing altogether. Enough already! Or at least have the integrity to admit when you’re wrong.

The President keeps proving himself smarter than his detractors. More power to him.

President Obama will win in 2012. And 4 years later all that will be remembered about his critics is that they were impatient, deluded and wrong.

Given what was on his plate when he took office and the fact that we’re successfully struggling out of both recession and 2 war — and succeeding — President Obama is one of the best of the American presidents already. His second term will consolidate that verdict and bodes greatness as his legacy.

SEX, MOM and GOD: How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics–and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway

Proof Psitive: The Tea Party/Religious Right are the Dumbest People in the World

Frank Schaeffer — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:14:00 +0000

Here’s an article that says it all. What do you think? Please add your own horror stories in the “How Stupid Can These People Get?” category in the comment section below. Thanks!

Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot

(From the New York Times)

Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.

Many are suspicious of environmental initiatives. Ed Elswick, a county supervisor, voiced criticism at last month’s meeting.

They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights.

“Down the road, this data will be used against you,” warned one speaker at a recent Roanoke County, Va., Board of Supervisors meeting who turned out with dozens of people opposed to the county’s paying $1,200 in dues to a nonprofit that consults on sustainability issues.

Local officials say they would dismiss such notions except that the growing and often heated protests are having an effect.

In Maine, the Tea Party-backed Republican governor canceled a project to ease congestion along the Route 1 corridor after protesters complained it was part of the United Nations plot. Similar opposition helped doom a high-speed train line in Florida. And more than a dozen cities, towns and counties, under new pressure, have cut off financing for a program that offers expertise on how to measure and cut carbon emissions.

“It sounds a little on the weird side, but we’ve found we ignore it at our own peril,” said George Homewood, a vice president of the American Planning Association’s chapter in Virginia.

The protests date to 1992 when the United Nations passed a sweeping, but nonbinding, 100-plus-page resolution called Agenda 21 that was designed to encourage nations to use fewer resources and conserve open land by steering development to already dense areas. They have gained momentum in the past two years because of the emergence of the Tea Party movement, harnessing its suspicion about government power and belief that man-made global warming is a hoax.

In January, the Republican Party adopted its own resolution against what it called “the destructive and insidious nature” of Agenda 21. And Newt Gingrich took aim at it during a Republican debate in November.

Tom DeWeese, the founder of the American Policy Center, a Warrenton, Va.-based foundation that advocates limited government, says he has been a leader in the opposition to Agenda 21 since 1992. Until a few years ago, he had few followers beyond a handful of farmers and ranchers in rural areas. Now, he is a regular speaker at Tea Party events.

Membership is rising, Mr. DeWeese said, because what he sees as tangible Agenda 21-inspired controls on water and energy use are intruding into everyday life. “People may be acting out at some of these meetings, and I do not condone that. But their elected representatives are not listening and they are frustrated.”

Fox News has also helped spread the message. In June, after President Obama signed an executive order creating a White House Rural Council to “enhance federal engagement with rural communities,” Fox programs linked the order to Agenda 21. A Fox commentator, Eric Bolling, said the council sounded “eerily similar to a U.N. plan called Agenda 21, where a centralized planning agency would be responsible for oversight into all areas of our lives. A one world order.”

The movement has been particularly effective in Tea Party strongholds like Virginia, Florida and Texas, but the police have been called in to contain protests in states including Maryland and California, where opponents are fighting laws passed in recent years to encourage development around public transportation hubs and dense areas in an effort to save money and preserve rural communities.

One group has become a particular target. Iclei — Local Governments for Sustainability USA, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit, sells software and offers advice to communities looking to reduce their carbon footprints. A City Council meeting in Missoula, Mont., in December got out of hand and required police intervention over $1,200 in dues to Iclei.

At a Board of Supervisors meeting in Roanoke in late January, Cher McCoy, a Tea Party member from nearby Lexington, Va., generated sustained applause when she warned: “They get you hooked, and then Agenda 21 takes over. Your rights are stripped one by one.”

Echoing other protesters, Ms. McCoy identified smart meters, devices being installed by utility companies to collect information on energy use, as part of the conspiracy. “The real job of smart meters is to spy on you and control you — when you can and cannot use electrical appliances,” she said.

Ilana Preuss, vice president of Smart Growth America, a national coalition of nonprofits that supports economic development while conserving open spaces and farmland, said, “The real danger is not that they will get rid of some piece of software from Iclei” but that “people will be too scared to have a conversation about local development. And that is an important conversation to be having.”

In some cases, the protests have not been large, but they are powerful because officials are concerned about the Tea Party.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Gingrich has called Agenda 21 an important issue and has said, “I would explicitly repudiate what Obama has done on Agenda 21.”

The Republican National Committee resolution, passed without fanfare on Jan. 13, declared, “The United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called ‘sustainable development’ views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment.”

Jeremy Rabkin, a professor of law at George Mason University specializing in sovereignty issues, said there were “entirely legitimate concerns about international standards that come into American law without formal ratification by the Senate.”

But some local officials argue that the programs that protesters see as part of the conspiracy are entirely created by local governments with the express intent of saving money — the central goal of the Tea Party movement.

Planning groups, several of which said they had never heard of Agenda 21 until protesters burst in, are counterorganizing.

Summer Frederick, the project manager for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission in Charlottesville, Va., which withdrew its dues to Iclei and its support from a national mayors’ agreement on climate change late last year after a campaign by protesters, now conducts seminars on how to deal with Agenda 21 critics. (Among her tips: remove the podium and microphones, which can make it “very easy for a critic to hijack a meeting.”)

Roanoke’s Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to renew its Iclei financing after many residents voiced their support.

“The Tea Party people say they want nonpolluted air and clean water and everything we promote and support, but they also say it’s a communist movement,” said Charlotte Moore, a supervisor who voted yes. “I really don’t understand what they want.”

By LESLIE KAUFMAN and KATE ZERNIKE
Published: February 3, 2012 New York Times

Arizona strikes again

jreid — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:04:30 +0000

It's all over but the Pinkertons…

It’s not enough that it’s the land of wildly anti-immigrant laws and sheriffs, and the crooked-fingered governor who feels “threatened” by … um… tall presidents. Now, Arizona is out-Wisconsining Wisconsin.

Seriously.

“Wisconsin on steroids” –a sweeping set of anti-union laws even more severe than those passed in Madison last March over massive public outcry—is now on the legislative agenda in Arizona. Arizona Republicans seek to ban local unions of teachers, firefighters, police, and other public servants from collective bargaining, and would even prohibit local officials from conferring with unions. These and other proposals set a new low in proposed restrictions on union rights.

The draconian package of bills includes:

A ban on local officials from bargaining with unions. It would even ban state and local units of government from conferring with unions.

Public employees could no longer have their dues deducted from their paychecks.

Enforcement of a “paycheck protection” plan making it harder for unions to get contributions for pro-labor candidates.

Prohibit local governments from granting release time for union activities, so that union leaders would have to use personal time to resolve issues with management.

“We consider this even worse than the [anti-public union] legislation that Gov. Walker pushed in Wisconsin, “said AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebeka Friend. She believes the new wave of legislation is aimed at preventing union members from speaking out against the privatization of public services in Arizona.

Privatization has long been a central goal of both the American Legislative Exchange Council (see here and here), a national group funded heavily by the billionaire Koch brothers that drafts and promotes state legislation, and the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, an ALEC affiliate.

“This is a Goldwater Institute attack,” Friend explained. “They’re a think-tank very prominent in anti-union activities, and their main goal is privatizing public services.

‘Let us make a profit, so what?’ Komen for the Cash Cure defunded stem cell research, too

jreid — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:33:03 +0000

H/t to Angryblacklady. Add “Pink Ribbons, Inc.” to my must-see movie list

And then ask yourself … who is that stylish woman behind the Susan G. Komen Foundation?

You might be surprised at defunded stem cell research:

In addition to pulling funds from Planned Parenthood, The Susan G. Komen Foundation also decided to stop funding embryonic stem cell research centers, making it fully transparent the organization has evolved from non-political non-profit to a partisan advocacy organization.

That means the loss of $3.75 million to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, $4.5 million to the University of Kansas Medical Center, $1 million to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, $1 million to the Society for Women’s Health Research, and $600,000 to Yale University. That’s a loss of nearly $12 million dollars in research money to eradicate breast cancer this year alone.

This is a new position for the organization which had previously supported all sorts of scientific research targeted at finding a cure for breast cancer and saving women’s lives. Its new position is that the organization will categorically no longer support any embryonic stem cell research.

Instead of the loud, clumsy announcement Komen made in severing ties with Planned Parenthood, this is a decision they quietly slipped in during November 2011. After all, with this new pro-life branding, you would think the Susan G. Komen Foundation would want to crow about its policy change since embryonic stem cell research is an issue near and dear to the anti-choice crowd Komen now serves.

Care2 also reveals that the decision to defund stem cell research last fall seems to coincide with Komen’s alignment with an organization called Americans United For Life, which the writer calls “the zealously anti-choice group that takes credit for pushing Komen directly and through members of Congress, to sever ties with Planned Parenthood.” The suggestion being that there may have been 2012 election politics at work. I don’t know if there’s evidence of that, but it’s clear that Komen is something other than a charity. It is a very profitable business for its founder, Nancy Goodman Brinker, and a vehicle for political activism on a national scale for the anti-choice/anti-stem cell research movement.

They may have backed down, at least for now, on Planned Parenthood, but to my mind, Komen has far from restored its credibility.

UPDATE: Americans United For life has taken down its promo page for a “Team Life” that it planned to run in the June 2 Komen Race for the Cure. Hm… Here’s a screenshot of the search result:

Just one day ago, AUL’s Charmaine Yeost was singing Komen’s praises.

BTW, the title is a reference to the infamous quote “let us make a profit, so what?” by Rick Scott, Florida governor and advocate of privatizing Medicare.

Komen caves

jreid — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:47:24 +0000

With a quickness. I guess they didn’t want to risk their corporate donors on the hope that church folk would keep them solvent.

Indiana, “right to work” laws, and “Power in a Union” – Fridays with Billy

Emily L. Hauser — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:01:10 +0000

This week, my neighboring state of Indiana became a “Right to Work” state — which sounds oddly like it’s now a better place to work, rather than part of a larger, nation-wide effort to gut unions and strip away the rights that the … Continue reading →

Susan G. Komen enters the McCarthy era

jreid — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:15:31 +0000

With one policy change, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure has gone from a respected heal advocacy charity, to a crass political actor. And that’s a shame.

He organization’s socialite founder was all over TV today trying to contain the damage from a decision they actually started making in December: to hire a right wing, anti-abortion, anti-contraception conservative firebrand on the rebound from a failed run for Georgia governor, and then, likely at her direction, to sever it’s grant-making ties to Planned Parenthood.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg has done some excellent reporting on the controversy and has this today:

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 Representative 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.

The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization’s top public-health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community-health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. Williams declined to comment when I reached her yesterday on whether she had resigned her position in protest, and she declined to speak about any other aspects of the controversy.

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen’s senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public-relations aspects of Komen’s Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right. “Mollie is one of the most highly respected and ethical people inside the organization, and she felt she couldn’t continue under these conditions,” Hammarley said. “The Komen board of directors are very politically savvy folks, and I think over time they thought if they gave in to the very aggressive propaganda machine of the anti-abortion groups, that the issue would go away. It seemed very shortsighted to me.”

Goldberg also got a statement from Williams.

That’s what happened, but the more salient point, is what it means. And for that, we stay with the Atlantic, where Linda Hirshman writes this:

Skeptical commentators are speculating that Komen bowed to political pressure. As conservatives increasingly targeted Planned Parenthood in recent months, various organizations explicitly upped the ante with Komen over their support of the non-profit. The Southern Baptists pulled their Pink Bible program, which produced a dollar for Komen with every Bible sold. Last April, Komen hired as vice president for public policy Karen Handel, a failed Republican candidate with a long online history of hostility to Planned Parenthood and contraception in general. And then it enacted its new rule.

The skepticism is further fueled by the weirdness of a rule letting any city council member or random state legislator decide to defund a Komen grantee just by starting an “investigation.” The Department of HHS rejected Stearns’ invitation to look into Planned Parenthood months ago, and, even if he were dead on, Stearns isn’t suggesting there’s something wrong with Planned Parenthood’s cancer screening. What if the IRS was looking into a hospital’s tax status? Or almost any member of the Arizona legislature was worrying that an in-state facility with Komen money was harboring illegal immigrants? Would Komen have to pull their funding too?

A point also made by Sen. Barbara Boxer during an excellent segment on the controversy on Andrea Mitchell Reports today that included a very personal Mitchell interview with Komen’s founder, with whom Mitchell has long been friends. From Politico:

In addition, Komen President Elizabeth Thompson insisted the changes aren’t about Planned Parenthood. The Komen foundation will re-evaluate “several” organizations that potentially do not meet its eligibility criteria, she said, not just Planned Parenthood.
Brinker also appeared on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” to explain the group’s decision.

“Many of the grants we were doing with Planned Parenthood do not meet new standards of criteria for how we can measure our results and effectiveness in communities,” Brinker said.
But Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who also appeared on the show, called Brinker’s explanations of the policy change “revisionist.”

“I was not born yesterday, as most of your viewers can tell. And the fact is, I’m reminded of the McCarthy era, where somebody said: ‘Oh, a congressman stands up a senator. I’m investigating this organization, and therefore, people should stop funding them,’” Boxer said.

Ding ding! And in this case the part of Joseph McCarthy is being played by a Florida congressman named Cliff Stearns. And his home state, Florida, has become such a hotbed of anti-abortion activity, 18 bills restricting abortion passed the statehouse last yea, five of which were signed into law. Florida’s latest contribution to the anti woman’s liberty cause? A bill that would effectively ban abortion altogether in the state, unless the woman requesting it was literally on her death bed.

But this isn’t a post about abortion. It’s a post about an organization that has joined the political anti-abortion cause, when their ostensive purpose was to fight breast cancer.

Now that Susan G. Komen has turned itself over to the anti-abortion movement, there’s no turning back.

Meanwhile, more resignations at Komen, and tremendous generosity toward Planned Parenthood, including from NY mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, ABL unearths another Komen political skeleton: lobbying against the ACA, which is fine, but also political. Not to mention that the law happens to include free breast exams. Ahem.

Oh, and there’s another Komen grantee under investigation. You’ll never guess who it is…

Lastly, the screenshot at the top of this page is of a tweet that was retweeted by Karen Handel and then quickly deleted. But screenshots are forever.

Convicting Wall Street

roadkillrefugee — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:15:25 +0000

Yesterday, three Credit Suisse bankers were charged with fraud by the U.S. Attorney for the S.D.N.Y., Preet S. Bharara, for inflating value of mortgage bonds during financial crisis to inflate their own bonuses. Significantly, two of the three traders pleaded … Continue reading →