Thanks to E.A. Blair for suggesting this wonderful new product...and illustration. We're planning on introducing more of your favorite wingers on Flakies boxes because...well, because every wingnut deserves the recognition.
Let ...
Is there not an ounce of sanity left anywhere in the Republican party?
Barely 36 hours after the caustic New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch ...
From The Onion:
Saying that she’ll be gone soon anyway so she might as well, Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann introduced H.R. 259: The Homosexual Decapitation Act, which would give the United ...
Surprise, surprise. Stupidity is alive and well in the racist wing of the conservative movement.
Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly is riled up about comprehensive immigration reform, and she has hardly been ...
All good bad things must eventually come to an end.
Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann, who last year ran for the Republican presidential nomination, announced on Wednesday that she will stand ...
The best of late night political humor via Daniel Kurtzman’s Political Humor.
Happy Friday.
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"During a Senate hearing yesterday, Senator John McCain said it was too hard to always have to update ...
John McCain has finally had enough of his Republican teabagging cohorts, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.
In the latest expression of Republican frustration with conservative GOP colleagues, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) ...
Our friend, John Liming, wonders how God might deal with two conflicting prayers of a political nature.
I have been reading an article on the website, Raw Story, where it is ...
Item 1:
The Oklahoma tornado disaster has killed at least 24 people, left hundreds injured and caused millions of dollars in damage. But that has not stopped a senator from that ...
If you're new to right-wing think, here's an easy to remember rule of thumb to help you along; any and all evil in the world can be attributed directly to ...
From a political party overflowing with sociopaths and creeps, none other than Dick Cheney encapsulates to a greater degree what it is the Republican party has become. The blood of ...
It can be debated as to whether the filibuster came about as a political accident or was created to give minority parties a stronger say in opposing specific legislation they ...
While gun nuts sink a little deeper into madness with each passing day, Seattle is turning guns into bricks.
The Seattle Police Department collected more than 700 guns during a buyback ...
Had enough of right-wing political crap and find yourself with a deep desire to get as far from the madding crowd as you can?
Read on...
The opportunity to travel to Mars ...
Here's the full quote from Charles P. Pierce.
If your "way of life" involves handing deadly weapons to five-year olds, your way of life is completely screwed up and you should ...
A guest post from James Fidlerten.
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After September 11, 2011, America became united, as it grieved the loss of so many lives on American soil. The tragic event also changed so ...
I'm not sure that 'crazy' is strong enough an adjective to describe the many (or few) who go to the absurd lengths they do in defending America's out-of-control gun culture. ...
Amazing. The age of organ donors is being supplanted by technology and innovation which strives to perfect the science of lab-grown organs.
Some researchers are excited by the potential organ-building capabilities of three-dimensional (3-D) printers. These devices are modified versions of everyday inkjet printers that squirt living cells rather than drops of ink. Layer by layer, they can make three-dimensional structures such as organs and, as of September last year, the blood vessels they contain. [Anthony] Atala is developing this technique – he wowed the audience at a TED conference last year by printing a kidney on stage (although not a functional one). He says, “For the level four organs [heart, lungs, etc.], it’s just a matter of time,” says Atala. “We’re still a long way from full replacement, but I do believe that these technologies are achievable.”
The backlash against Komen has been tremendous announcing that enough is enough with senseless conservative crap of this kind which does nothing more than satisfy the narrow-minded while endangering the lives of people.
You can contribute to Planned Parenthood here and voice your thoughts via email to Komen here. As well, you might want to send a message to Komen’s corporate sponsors and let them know your intention to boycott their products.
Hopefully, this politically motivated move by Komen will be the line in the sand many dare to cross.
UPDATE
This is what happens when enough people stand up and shout, “ENOUGH!”
“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.
The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.
Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.
“We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities”
Here’s a shorter version of the Komen reversal. “We heard your reasoned and passionate pleas to not allow low income women to needlessly die. That and you were making us look really, really bad.”
The Planned Parenthood/Susan G. Komen story is another clear example of how right-wing ideology has forced its way into just about every aspect of American life. Pushing conservative social policies involves demonizing organizations like Planned Parenthood which provides vital breast cancer screenings to low-income and uninsured women.
Komen’s choosing to cease funding to Planned Parenthood because the organization is under investigation by Congress is simply another attack on women’s rights. The real reason PP is being defunded by Komen is because the latter is controlled by right-wing ideologues who have allowed politics to guide their decision making. They have given in to anti-abortion zealots who have been running a boycott campaign against Komen.
Komen has been under pressure from anti-abortion groups to drop its funding for Planned Parenthood, which received $680,000 from the anti-cancer group in 2011. Most recently, abortion foes forced a Christian publisher to stop printing pink Komen bibles and pressured bookstores to take them off shelves. Groups have also called on supporters to boycott Komen entirely, and decried the group as a “lie from the pit of Hell.”
Breast cancer charity giant Susan G. Komen for the Cure on Tuesday did not renew a grant to Planned Parenthood to fund breast exams. The move comes less than a year after Komen hired a new vice president, who has publicly stated her opposition to abortion, a service provided at some Planned Parenthood facilities.
Komen’s new vice president, Karen Handel, had run for governor of Georgia in 2010 on an aggressively anti-abortion and anti-Planned Parenthood platform and was endorsed by Sarah Palin because of her opposition to reproductive choice. Handel wrote in her campaign blog that she “do[es] not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”
Komen’s founder is pretty conservative, too. Komen CEO Nancy G. Brinker, who founded the foundation in memory of a sister who died from breast cancer, was the chief protocol officer for the United States from 2007 to 2009 under the George W. Bush administration, and before that served as his ambassador to Hungary.
Brinker is also a major Republican donor, and has given more than $175,000 to Republican candidates and the Republican National Committee since 1990…
sitting on Komen’s Advocacy Alliance Board is Jane Abraham, the General Chairman of the virulently anti-choice and anti-science Susan B. Anthony List and of its Political Action Committee. Among other involvements, Abraham helps direct the Nuturing Network, a global network of crisis pregnancy centers, organizations widely known for spreading ideology, misinformation and lies to women facing unintended pregnancy and to use both intimidation and coercion in the course of doing so.
Here’s the bottom line: given a choice between their personal agendas and helping low-income Americans deal with vital health issues, the Susan G. Komen charity made the decision to go with the former.
That Komen–an organization ostensibly dedicated to scientific exploration of cures for breast cancer–has invited on its advocacy board women so closely allied with organizations that so blatantly ignore science and medicine and spread outright lies to other women about their health and welfare speaks volumes about Komen’s ethical principles as an organization.
And as a result of Komen’s decision, women will needlessly die.
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