<p>Personally I think all these executives are overpaid, but I agree that it would behoove all of us to do a little more research into the charities we donate too: [Top</a> 25 Compensation Packages from the Charity Rating Guide](<a href=“http://www.charitywatch.org/hottopics/Top25.html]Top”>http://www.charitywatch.org/hottopics/Top25.html)</p>
<p>Abortion is important women’s health care, as are contraceptives and morning-after pills (which are simply larger doses of same.) As previously noted, these are services used heavily by everyone - including (and especially) Catholics, Evangelical/born-agains, and other Christians. </p>
<p>I would have been pleased to have seen PP mount a massive campaign to defend the importance of abortion services (most of which it doesn’t provide) as part of women’s health care. Nothing could be further from the truth. </p>
<p>If Catholics, Evangelicals, Republicans, whoever, don’t want to use contraception and don’t want to get abortions, that’s fine with me. The evidence, however, is that they do, and by the tens of millions.</p>
<p>As for playing the Nazi card, 'nuf said.</p>
<p>[Karen</a> Handel resigns from Komen | ajc.com](<a href=“http://www.ajc.com/news/karen-handel-resigns-from-1336515.html]Karen”>http://www.ajc.com/news/karen-handel-resigns-from-1336515.html)</p>
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<p>Brinker first says Handel had no role in the decision and then Handel, while resigning, confirms she did. This after other anonymous insiders allege Handel was the architect of the whole thing.</p>
<p>Is this statement Handel’s parting move to throw Brinker under the bus (for lying) because Handel feels like she got thrown under the bus?</p>
<p>This is getting more melodramatic than Downton Abbey.</p>
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<p>No need to login to Guidestar Go to Komen’s wesbsite and pull up their Federal From 990’s, which are available for all to see. (It’s what Guidestar uses.) Same can be done for PP.</p>
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<p>Clearly, folks can express what they so desire. But I still don’t get the “outrage” part. Komen was providing $600k to PP. Planned Parenthood’s revenue last year exceeded $1 billion dollars. By my math, that is ~6 tenths of 1% of PP’s income. A reduction in that (paltry) amount results in ‘outrage’?</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Brinker denied Handel’s involvement in a televised interview with MSNBC , but that did little to quell the growing movement calling for Handel’s resignation."</p>
<p>Brinker is the Pres. and Chair of the Board. Handel was hired to direct public policy, and Komen knew full well where she stood when they hired her. Not surprised they through her under the bus, but the buck clearly didn’t stop with her.</p>
<p>Handel does not know how this game is played. She wrote the wrong letter. First of all, she “continues to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future.” Oh come now. It may have been a good idea for Komen to quietly disentangle itself from Planned Parenthood, but her method was a fiasco of epic proportions. </p>
<p>Second, although she says she was involved, she blames others at Komen for the ultimate decision to defund Planned Parenthood. Whining about how other people also acceded in the decision cannot serve any purpose she has. She needed to pick a side. She could have played the good soldier: “Unfortunately, I have become a distraction from Komen’s mission. Therefore, I regretfully must resign. I continue to support Komen, and wish it all the best in the future.” </p>
<p>Or, she could have taken full responsibility and curried favor with the anti-abortion side. “I cannot support Komen’s continued involvement with an organization that murders babies. Although I tried to change that policy, ultimately I was unsuccessful. Therefore, I regretfully must resign.”</p>
<p>But trying to split the difference means neither side will approve. The Huff Post article quoted an informant as saying she’s politically tone-deaf. Yes. For a Vice President for Public Policy, she has remarkably poor instincts about politics.</p>
<p>I’m not particularly bothered by how Komen spends its money. Top fundraising people are talented and get paid well. Two of the wealthiest women I know made their money in development. They worked incredibly hard and raised lots of money. </p>
<p>Komen’s value is as much in raising awareness as anything else.</p>
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<p>I am in total agreement with you. Forgive me if this was covered earlier in the thread but was Handel even with Komen when they stopped funding embryonic stem cell research?</p>
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<p>As PP and its supporters saw it, Komen’s “desire to get out of the abortion politics debate” consisted of kowtowing to the anti-abortion activists who had been demanding for years that Komen sever its ties with PP as part of a broader campaign to isolate and destroy PP—with Komen all the while hiding behind transparently phony pretextual reasons for taking that action. </p>
<p>To PP and its supporters that looks like anything but neutrality on the abortion question; it’s choosing up sides. And because it wasn’t even done forthrightly but instead was passed off behind a pack of lies, it looks and feels a lot like . . . well, backstabbing is the word that come to mind. PP and Komen had a modest but positive working relationship until then; PP was delivering program that Komen thought worthy of funding. For reasons completely unrelated to that programmatic relationship, which for both organizations was a relatively small part of their overall mission but a place where their missions overlapped, Komen severed the relationship and lied about why it was doing so.</p>
<p>I don’t blame PP for bringing down Komen. Komen blundered its way into the middle of the abortion crossfire. It’s tempting for some to blame PP, but you could just as easily point a finger at the anti-abortion lobby that pressured Komen to go down this route in the first place, or the Komen officers who caved in the face of that pressure (or in the case of Handel, actively aligned herself with it), or the incredibly naive and ham-handed way Brinker tried to lie her way through it. Mostly, though, Komen has nobody but itself to blame. It shot itself in the left foot by severing ties with PP, then it shot itself in the right foot by reversing course. Neither side in the abortion debate will trust it again, and its brand has been badly and possibly irreparably damaged. But that’s its own doing.</p>
<p>Ooh! oooh! “Nazi Terrorist tactics” Gotta check that out…</p>
<p>No lie, here’s an example of those Nazi terrorist tactics taken straight from a WSJ column written by James Taranto:</p>
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Now that’s vicious for you, eh? A little more of that and we’d all be speaking German today, doncha think? :D</p>
<p>Did they really say “screw over”? OMG! The stormtroopers are here! (If I disappear, you know where I am - please tell my Mom.)</p>
<p>(It’s what happens when you have second-rate college dropouts righting (deliberate spelling) “opinion” columns in your newsrag.)</p>
<p>Any foundation can spend $$ on whatever they wish. Any contributor has a choice of contributing oor not. Anybody has a right to lie if they wish, everybody has a choice of believing or not. Unless crime is committed, I do not see any shame in anything. If people did not exercise their freedom of choices, it is their own problem, blaming others has never helped and will not help, better learn it sooner than later. There are many (thousands?) of private and unfortunately public organizations that are involved in dishonest practices. Investigate before contributing, or you will end up blaming them for not being honest. Most of them are very legit., I am not talking about criminal activities here.</p>
<p>“PP was fully prepared to kill off Komen and ALL of its breast cancer work as revenge on Komen’s desire to get out of the abortion politics debate.”</p>
<p>Komen killed off Komen.</p>
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<p>Unlike you, MiamiDAP, I see shame in lying. People have the right to lie unless they’re under oath, but I have the right to excoriate liars.</p>
<p>Investigate before contributing, or you will end up blaming them for not being honest.</p>
<p>If they are dishonest, how do you find this out?</p>
<p>PP didn’t bring down Komen, Komen’s decision to cut off funding to PP for purely political reasons did and the anger didn’t come from PP, they didn’t organize people, when word got out people were outraged that Komen could withold funding because the religious right has it in for PP. More importantly, it was patently obvious that Komen wasn’t doing this to get out of politics, it was making a stand to say that politics, specifically the abortion debate, meant more then services being provided to screen for cancer…and for many, it was in effect the fundamental problem with the anti abortion forces, that they are so driven by their stand on abortion that they seem to forget about the life of those already born. The excuse of ‘being investigated’ quite frankly is no different then what went on when anti communist types used ‘the red scare’ to influence things that had nothing to do with communism and everything simply to do with something ‘they didn’t like’. </p>
<p>No, the money was not a big deal as a portion of PP’s budget, but it is the principal is involved. What’s next, pleasing the religious right and de funding women’s health initiatives done through GLBT community programs? Or de-funding health initiatives aimed at the Muslim community because some people think Muslim’s are less then citizens? I am not angry about the amount of money involved, I am angry that a group that is there to help cure and prevent people from suffering from a horrible disease could allow politics not related to what they are doing interfere, or allow a relatively small group of hard core anti abortion/hard right social conservatives decide policy based on ideology, not science and not on pragmatic reality.</p>
<p>The fact that anyone could call PP Nazi’s tells a lot about why people were bothered by Komen’s decisions, it is giving into people who are to say the least a bit off the deep end of reality; to compare PP to the Nazi’s trivializes what the Nazi’s did, for one thing the overwhelming majority of PP’s activities are non abortion related, 97% of their spending is not on abortion, and PP doesn’t force anyone to get an abortion, and there was no decision on the part of the victims of the Nazis, they were living human beings deprived of their life, which with abortion at least there is room for doubt, since the arguments against it are based on a moral position, not on logic or science.Among other things, it raises questions about Komen’s ability to make rational decisions, it sounds like they took a radical ideological position, rather then based on facts, because de facto they catered to those who could even suggest PP was the same as Nazism.</p>
<p>^^ Thank you. The habit of slapping the “Nazi” label on anyone with whom you disagree is just despicable, and dishonors the real victims of the real Nazis.</p>
<p>People of Handel’s ilk are not just against the 3% that Planned Parenthood spends on abortions - they are against PP’s original mission - CONTRACEPTION.</p>
<p>As this writer aptly puts it:
[quote]
First they came for abortion, but I didn’t care because abortion was for sluts. Then they came for sex ed, but I didn’t care because the kids can learn all they need to know at home. Then they came for birth control, but… Wait a minute! Birth control? They’re coming for birth control? I need that! For nearly a decade prochoicers have been warning that abortion foes were gearing up to go after contraception, but the possibility of losing birth control was too far-out for most people to take seriously. And you know prochoicers—they’re always crying wolf. Well, wake up, sleepyheads, it’s happening.<a href=“by%20Katha%20Pollitt,%20in%20The%20Nation,%20October%202011”>/quote</a></p>
<p>For those who have not seen this viral video, please make sure you don’t have any food or drink in your mouth from about a minute and a half on… it is hilarious:</p>
<p>[Watch</a> Stephen Colbert’s Defense of Planned Parenthood](<a href=“http://gawker.com/5791100/watch-stephen-colberts-defense-of-planned-parenthood]Watch”>Watch Stephen Colbert's Defense of Planned Parenthood)</p>
<p>You’ll never be able to think of any Walgreens store in the same light again after watching this.</p>