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Why You Still Shouldn’t Trust Susan G. Komen, Even After Their Reversal

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If there is one thing every human being knows, it’s the idea of trust. And when that trust is broken, it’s hard to rebuild it. Perhaps in a marriage, over time, trust can be restored, hopefully. But in a relationship with an organization, that trust has to be based both on actions and on research. And the bottom line with the new Susan G. Komen For The Cure organization is that the people who were once part of the organization that was known since its founding as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is that it’s an entirely different organization than America once knew, and trusted. Frankly, their name change proves their desire to move from being a cancer non-profit to a political organization.

It’s like when your local neighborhood bank gets bought out by a huge international financial conglomerate. “Union Trust” becomes Bank of America. Everything changes. Oh, they promise it won’t, but you and I know it always does. New policies, new practices, new people.

And it’s these new people at Komen that have changed a once non-political non-profit breast cancer fighting organization into a political profiteering organization with an agenda, beholden to the radical right.

Yes, Komen today reversed course and possibly reinstated funding to Planned Parenthood, but the fact remains that their bylaws have not changed — this is a temporary move, with no guarantee that they will fund Planned Parenthood in the future, or not restrict their funding either.

In fact, as The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports, it’s unclear Komen will fund Planned Parenthood in the future at all:

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.”

News reports yesterday confirmed that Komen lost several long-time senior executives who resigned upon losing the battle to keep funding Planned Parenthood. And as we already know, newly-hired Komen Vice President Karen Handel is the catalyst behind the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

Dropping funding for Planned Parenthood was Handle’s top agenda — long before she found a way to do it from the inside.

Just nine months ago, Handel secured a position at Komen as their Senior Vice President of Public Policy, and immediately went to work on her plan to defund Planned Parenthood. Ultimately, by convincing the Board of Directors that a change to the organization’s by-laws that prohibited them from funding groups under congressional investigation would protect the Dallas, Texas based group, Handel found her way to defund Planned Parenthood, a huge win for the woman who had run for Georgia Governor on a platform that included defunding Planned Parenthood at the state level.

Yesterday, Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic confirmed all this, writing that “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.)”

But if you’re still not convinced about the tenure and trustworthiness of Karen Handel, a few more bits of information.

One, Handel was a member of the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, yet denied it during her gubernatorial campaign and even claimed to be against gay rights, including marriage. Handel was endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans in 2002 and 2003.

Secondly, as Georgia Secretary of State, Handel was behind notorious so-called voter registration laws and so-called citizenship verification efforts that serve only to intimidate voters and make it especially challenging for minorities and the poor to register and vote. So extreme and indefensible were these actions that the U.S. Department of Justice ordered Georgia to cease citizenship verification under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Lastly, while inconsequential, the screen shot above of Karen Handle’s Twitter account says a great deal about who Handel is as a person and about her state of mind, not to mention her ability to actually be the senior vice president of public policy for a major non-profit. Handel retweeted a tweet from radical conservative Jade Morey that read, “Just like a pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river.”

Typical insensitivity from the radical right.

Lastly, there’s this, via an email I just received from the Institute for Southern Studies:

In 2002, Southern Exposure — the magazine of the nonprofit Institute for Southern Studies, which publishes Facing South — ran a landmark investigation by Mary Ann Swissler looking at the foundation’s opposition to health care reform.

The story also critically examined Komen’s refusal to look at the environmental causes of cancer — perhaps not surprising given the group’s corporate funders.

Any questions? Can Komen For The Cure ever be trusted again? When you hire people like Karen Handel, I find it hard to come up with any way to say yes.

 

Image: Karen Handel’s Twitter account, via Yfrog.

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‘They’re Coming After Our Children’: Watch Casey DeSantis’ Dystopian Fear-Mongering Ad

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December 8, 2023

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The imagery is dark. The words are defiant. The message is dystopian. An ad for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis‘s presidential campaign, currently “in turmoil,” features the First Lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, issuing a warning: “They’re coming after our children.”

The ad never quite says who is coming after the kids, but the video (below) includes clips of President Joe Biden and former Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the war on COVID and the now-retired Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

While it was first released over the summer, it received little attention. Casey DeSantis on Friday reposted her “Mamas for DeSantis” ad. It comes in the wake of the alleged ménage à trois sex scandal involving an unnamed woman who has accused Christian Ziegler, the head of the Florida Republican Party of rape. His wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, who reportedly confirmed the consensual three-way sexual relationship, is Casey DeSantis’ “best friend,” according to Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch.

“In America, we’ve witnessed a lot and put up with enough,” Casey DeSantis says in a voiceover at the start of the two-and-a-half minute video.

“We’ve been forced into silence,” she charges, amid a baby crying and a COVID mask being put over a child’s face. “Into compliance.”

“Told that we must ‘trust the science,'” DeSantis continues, in a direct attack on Dr. Fauci, showing him speaking during the height of COVID in the Trump administration.

READ MORE: ‘Significant and Imminent Threat’: Trump Gag Order Largely Upheld by Appeals Court

And in an attack on LGBTQ children and adults, she says: “We’ve been told that we must deny truth. Back down. And look the other way.”

“Enough is enough. When you come after our kids, we fight back. Because there’s nothing we won’t do to protect our children,” she says.

Seconds later, the video shows President Joe Biden declaring, “Our nation’s children are all our children.”

“We will not allow you to exploit their innocence to advance your agenda. We are no longer silent,” Casey DeSantis declares. “We are united. We have finally found our fighter.”

Casey DeSantis praises her husband, saying he will do for America what he did for Florida: “Schools: opened. Parents’ rights: defended. School choice: universal. Critical race theory: prohibited. DEI: stopped. Child mutilation: illegal. Girls’ sports: saved. Communities: protected. Our economy: growing. And freedom: guaranteed.”

READ MORE: ‘Dystopian’: Potential Trump Cabinet Picks Send ‘5-Alarm’ Shock Waves of Terror

In the section where President Biden says, “Our nation’s children are all our children,” Casey DeSantis doesn’t explain that those words came from a White House celebration honoring Teachers of The Year from across the country. The President was praising an Oklahoma Teacher of the Year whose district includes students who speak 62 different languages, so she had to work hard to ensure everyone felt included. She had said, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child.”

Nor did DeSantis acknowledge that Governor DeSantis’ performance for children has been poor.

The Florida Policy Institute, which says it is “an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization,” in September warned “368,728 youth aged 20 and younger” have been cut from Medicaid. “Because Florida has not expanded Medicaid, the vast majority of those losing insurance during this time have been children, parents, young adults, and new mothers.”

Florida ranks 35th in child well-being (with 1 being the best), according WUSF, citing the Kids Count Databook from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Some critics on social media blasted Casey DeSantis’ remarks.

“Republicans refused to extend child tax credits that pulled 2 million children out of poverty. They resist the idea of free school lunches. Yet they come up with bullshit about their opponents ‘coming after our children.’ Yes, we’re coming after them, to give them a sandwich,” wrote former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob.

READ MORE: Jobs Report Forces Fox News to Admit Biden Economy ‘A Lot Stronger Than Anybody Understands’

Watch the Casey DeSantis video below or at this link.

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‘Significant and Imminent Threat’: Trump Gag Order Largely Upheld by Appeals Court

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December 8, 2023

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A Washington, D.C. federal appeals court Friday afternoon largely upheld and reinstated U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s very narrow and limited gag order on Donald Trump for his trial on charges related to his alleged efforts to subvert the U.S. Constitution and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“We agree with the district court that some aspects of Mr. Trump’s public statements pose a significant and imminent threat to the fair and orderly adjudication of the ongoing criminal proceeding, warranting a speech-constraining protective order,” reads Judge Patricia Millett unanimous three-judge panel ruling, posted by Lawfare’s Anna Bower. “The district court’s order, however, sweeps in more protected speech than is necessary. For that reason, we affirm the district court’s order in part and vacate it in part.”

The judges upheld the gag order “to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”

READ MORE: Jobs Report Forces Fox News to Admit Biden Economy ‘A Lot Stronger Than Anybody Understands’

They also upheld the gag order “to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the Special Counsel, (2) members of the court’s staff and counsel’s staffs, or (3) the family members of any counsel or staff member—if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staff’s work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is highly likely to result.”

The judges removed from the gag order “speech beyond those specified categories.”

“We do not allow such an order lightly,” the judges added. “But Mr. Trump is also an indicted criminal defendant, and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants.”

Bower explains, “Chutkan’s order would have prohibited statements that refer to special counsel Jack Smith as a ‘thug’ or ‘deranged.’ But the appeals court order does not apply to speech about the special counsel himself.”

CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane sums up the ruling: “Much of the gag order in Donald Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy criminal case in DC is *REINSTATED*.”

READ MORE: Peter Doocy Admits No ‘Concrete Evidence Joe Biden Personally Profited’ From Hunter’s Business

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Peter Doocy Admits No ‘Concrete Evidence Joe Biden Personally Profited’ From Hunter’s Business

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December 8, 2023

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In a report focused on House Republicans’ plan to vote on a resolution to open an official impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy told viewers there is no evidence of impeachable offenses.

“The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years, and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter’s overseas business but they are going to try again with this impeachment inquiry set to start next week,” Doocy, who often criticizes President Biden in White House press briefings, said Friday on Fox News Business.

Other news outlets this week have also stressed Republicans have come up empty-handed.

The right-leaning news outlet The Hill, reporting on the resolution Thursday, noted Republicans’ current investigation “has struggled to connect President Biden to the activities of his son, and they’ve failed to prove their most salacious allegation — and the one that would be most key for impeachment: that the president accepted a bribe.”

READ MORE: Jobs Report Forces Fox News to Admit Biden Economy ‘A Lot Stronger Than Anybody Understands’

One of the main pillars of Republicans’ allegations against President Biden, the “narrative that President Biden pushed Ukraine to fire its prosecutor to help his son, who served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burimsa, has largely been refuted,” The Hill also reported.

“Republicans have engaged in wide-ranging inquiry into Mr. Biden for months,” The New York Times reported Tuesday, “hunting for evidence to back up their allegations that he corruptly profited from his family members’ overseas business dealings and accepted bribes. To date, they have failed to deliver compelling evidence to back up their boldest claims.”

Watch Doocy below or at this link.

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