The Komen Backlash Escalates

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This is turning into a first-rate watershed from which Komen cannot possibly survive in its current form.

It isn’t just the ties to right-wing whackjobs that’s a problem. In the past few hours the spotlight turned upon the Susan G. Komen Foundation has revealed it to be mostly a merchandising racket that has been spending much more money on executive salaries and self-promoting “awareness” events than on cancer research.

And Komen is going to lose its corporate sponsors, which means its done for. The big bucks haven’t been coming from individuals doing walk-a-thons, but through corporate merchandising deals. The walk-a-thons and other “awareness” events are less about raising money than about building the Komen brand to get the corporate sponsors on board. And I strongly suspect most of the women who have been supporting the walk-a-thons are middle- and upper-middle class ladies who may not be politically active, but they lean more liberal than conservative. DougJarvis Green-Ellis writes,

Right now, they get a lot of money from corporate sponsors—many of whom will drop them—and (I’m guessing here but I’m almost sure this is true) from affluent women in Westchester County, etc. That money is gone and it’s not coming back.

I was thinking of Westchester County women, too. The wealthier ones may be upper-class twits, but they are mostly progressive upper-class twits. Westchester has been voting Democratic since the 1990s, and Barack Obama got 63 percent of the Westchester vote in 2008. I’ll be very surprised if there is another Komen event here ever again. And without the support of that particular consumer demographic, the Komen brand won’t be worth much.

Yes, it can probably still do well with the Fox News and redneck crowd — older, less affluent — but the merchandising possibilities narrow considerably. A lot more women buy yogurt than attend gun shows.

The Yoplait Facebook page is running over with anti-Komen comments. But the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer page wants you to know it is completely unaffiliated with Komen. Komen is now officially radioactive.

Sarah Seltzer:

When the decision was announced over the Planned Parenthood email list (it had initially been broken a short while earlier), it felt like a crippling blow to women’s healthcare–and in some ways it still is. But the big story is actually how furious many Komen supporters are, how many have taken to the Internet, to petitions, and more to declare the end of their support and donations to Komen.

This is a big change, considering the fact that Komen was a beloved, celebrity-endorsed brand — and Planned Parenthood was increasingly under attack. But something shifted after this announcement: immediate analyses from social media in fact show that the number of angry comments against Komen and in favor Planned Parenthood vastly outnumbered the comments that applauded the decision — even as Komen began to frantically erase them on its Facebook page.

Marketing expert Kivi Leroux Miller calls Komen’s actions a “communications debacle unfolding before us,” writing, “At one point last night, I did a quick count and found the ratio of anti-Komen decisions to pro-Komen decisions to be about 80 to 1 on Twitter.” Miller has a blow-by-blow post on how the news broke and essentially how the Komen foundation utterly failed at every step to anticipate and properly deal with the outrage.

For all the noise they make, the Fetus People are a minority, and I strongly suspect most Americans would like them to crawl back under their rock.

Also — Komen’s excuse for defunding Planned Parenthood is that PP is under congressional investigation. Well, so is Penn State University, and Komen hasn’t cut off Penn State.

The big loser here may be breast cancer research. But a lot of articles written over the past few days have pointed out that throwing huge amounts of money at breast cancer hasn’t really done all that much to stop it.

Susan G. Komen, Will You Please Go Now?

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Latest — donations to Planned Parenthood in the past few hours have made up more than half of what they received from the Komen Foundation last year. Keep those donations going!

One of Komen’s biggest corporate sponsors is Ford Motors, Check out some of the comments (including mine) on the Ford Warriors in Pink Facebook page. Please leave more comments.

It turns out that only 24 percent of funds received by Komen actually goes into research. The Fund has turned into a huge money-making racket that spends more promoting itself than in actually being “for the cure.” Ironically, some of their promotional products contain potential carcinogens.

The makers of this new documentary probably are high-fiving this morning (thanks, gulag).

I agree with Tbogg that this bonehead move is destroying Komen’s “brand.”

Now the Komen people have spent a tremendous amount of time and money (using donation/sponsorship money) marketing themselves, tracking down new contributors, and maintaining relationships with long time contributors in order to feed the beast. Since the intersection of contributors who support both Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation is in all likelihood an almost complete overlap because they are both primarily associated with women’s health issues, the fall-out has to be huge. Somewhat larger than whatever value they think Karen Handel brings to the table, I assume. Think of this as a divorce between a couple who have been dear friends of yours for years and now you have to decide whose side you want to take. Based upon what I’m seeing and hearing, women see the Komen people as the bad guys because they’re the ones who threw out their partner in order to sleep with wingnuts for strictly political and, more importantly, not medical reasons. If I’m in the marketing department at Komen… I’m pissed. I’ve spent years developing a highly successful very lucrative cash vacuum and now either by executive fiat or fear of a marginal fringe group, potentially millions of dollars from longtime contributors is lost forever over a $600,000 grant. And for those who think those dollars are going to be made up by conservatives who are already hostile to the idea of providing adequate healthcare to their fellow citizens, much less the needs of only women, well then you’re whistling past the graveyard.

Let’s help make Komen radioactive. And may I add, I don’t think Komen will be able to rehabilitate itself, even if it fires the executives who made the decision.

Update: See Charles Pierce.

Susan G. Komen and the Meaning of “Pressure” (Updated)

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Steal This Graphic!

You’ve probably heard that the Susan B. Komen Foundation has caved to pressure from right-wing organizations and de-funded Planned Parenthood. This will result in more breast cancer deaths, since it cuts millions of uninsured women off from any possibility of breast cancer screenings.

According to Sarah Kliff, the Komen Foundation says it is de-funding Planned Parenthood because it is under congressional investigation. Of course, the only reason it is under congressional investigation is that wingnuts in Congress are subjecting it to a witch hunt.

I think the Sarah B. Komen Foundation is about to learn the true meaning of the word “pressure.” My suspicions are that the bulk of its supporters are mostly feminist, and pro-choice, women. Not necessarily activists, but at least several degrees to the left of Phyllis Shlafly and Sarah Palin.

As Joan Walsh tweeted, “The Komen Foundation just destroyed its brand, and it’s going to be very, very sorry.”

Mistermix:

I’m confident that Komen’s funding will be replaced, and also that Komen will be a pale pink shadow of its former self unless it reverses this stupid decision and fires the people responsible. Check out list after list after list of Komen’s corporate sponsors. Do you think New Balance, Ford and Georgia-Pacific signed on for a public fight over Planned Parenthood? When Yoplait put a pink lid on its yogurt, did they do it to make it easier to boycott their products? Because that’s what’s going to happen. Unlike most boycotts, it’s easy to figure out which products you shouldn’t buy: anything that displays a pink ribbon with the Komen name.

When Komen starts losing corporate sponsorship, it will re-think its decision. No more pink ribbons.

Update: I second Tbogg —

We’ve done this before, but you can make a donation to Planned Parenthood and request a thank you card be sent to

Karen Handel
Senior VP of Fail
c/o Susan G. Komen Foundation
P.O. Box 650309
Dallas, TX 75265-0309

Everybody’s In!

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I am pleased to report that none of the remaining GOP contenders are dropping out yet. Party on!

Dylan Byers at Politico figured out that each Romney Florida vote cost the Romney campaign and its superPAC $19.94, whereas runner-up Newt spent just $6.38 per vote. And for the $15,389,287 it cost the Romney tribe to win Florida, he still got less than half of the vote.

Also, Gingrich won more votes in the panhandle than Romney, which suggests Mittens really does have a Southern problem.

Also, too: President Obama is out-fundraising the lot of them, and he isn’t having to spend a ton of money winning primaries.

David Brooks Bites

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I regret that I’ve had to be working on something else today, because David Brooks is off the Oblivious Scale today. He has reached a level of cluelessness remarkable even for Brooks.

I mentioned a few days ago that Charles Murray has a new book out to complain po’ white folks is gettin’ as lazy and shiftless as th’ colored folk, an it’s all ’cause they’s losin’ their moral compasses.

Of course, they probably had to hock their moral compasses to keep their lights turned on. That said, let’s continue.

Brooks heaps praise on Murray’s book, saying “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society.” And he buys into Murray’s argument that the white underclass is losing its connection to the traditional (e.g., white) culture they are supposed to be part of, which is why they are not as productive as they used to be. And rising income inequality is the result of this, not the cause.

Brooks simply dismisses any argument that economic injustice is tearing the country apart. In fact, Brooks blames the “liberal members of the upper tribe” for stoking the resentments of the lower classes, which to Brooks is the real cause of the problem. If the white trash lower classes would just work harder, and get married, they’d be living in the Hamptons, too!

And he concludes by saying we should all go to the same summer camp to get to know each other:

We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement.

Un-freakin’-believable. There hasn’t been this much upper-class-twit obliviousness concentrated in one person since Marie Antoinette.

Fortunately Charles Pierce is back in the saddle, heaping all the snarky contempt on Brooks he richly deserves. I also love this comment from Zandar:

It’s like Brooks is some sort of Sisyphean device that has one purpose: to take any possible social paradigm observation, smash it with a sledgehammer, and reconstruct the bits in order to fit his god-awful worldview of bipartisanship, even if the pieces don’t fit and had nothing to do with the original observation in the first place, and he has to repeat that until the end of time. There are people that just don’t get it, people that don’t get it on purpose as satire, and then there’s David Brooks (who should be regularly harvested for the rich oil of contempt for anyone who makes less than six figures that he drips with) who somehow manages to make “not getting it” into an exciting new field of scientific endeavor. I’ve got a fiver that says if Brooks was jammed together with any actual American middle-class salt-of-the-earth family for more than 3 hours, there would be blood all over the carport and a Garden Weasel shoved in a very uncomfortable place upon his person.

First rate snark, Zandar. I salute you.

Florida Primary

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Nate is giving Mittens a 97 percent chance of winning the Florida primary today, so it’s all over but the votin’. The establishment, faced with a choice between Mittens and Newt, have now congealed around Mittens. Barring an intervention by God, Mittens will be the nominee.

However, word is that Newt is crazy/deluded/narcissistic enough to keep campaigning. I hope so; Mittens is such a crashing bore.

Speaking of the Great Gas-Passing Orifice — Newt’s latest contribution to our nation’s political discourse is another doozy —

The transcript, via Think Progress —

GINGRICH: Now, I think we need to have a government that respects our religions. I’m a little bit tired about respecting every religion on the planet. I’d like them to respect our religion.

And what religion would that be, Newt? The Church of Asshattery? But you see why I would be sooo disappointed if Newt drops out now.

Newt says President Obama and Mittens have been waging a “war against religion,” most recently for not permitting the Catholic bishops to dictate the reproductive choices of their non-Catholic employees. Apparently this violates the bishops’ “freedom” to force their beliefs on people who don’t agree with them.

Catholic Bishops: Boo Bleepin’ Hoo

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I wish I had more time to write about the fact that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have their cinctures in a twist over the Obama Administration’s recent decision about birth control — namely, that Catholic institutions that employ non-Catholics have to provide birth control coverage under the health care law. I agree entirely with Nita Chaudhary and Shaunna Thomas, and also Digby, so go read what they said.

Destructive Austerity

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Paul Krugman has a column and a blog post that ought to be read together. Both are about the way deficit hawkism are prolonging and worsening the recession, here and in Europe.

In “The Austerity Debacle” he writes that Britain climbed out of the Great Depression a lot faster than it is climbing out of the Great Recession. Same thing for Italy, Spain, and a lot of other European countries. And the reason they are having such a hard time is that today’s leaders threw the lessons of the past, including the lessons of the Great Depression out the window.

Britain, in particular, was supposed to be a showcase for “expansionary austerity,” the notion that instead of increasing government spending to fight recessions, you should slash spending instead — and that this would lead to faster economic growth.

This austerity was supposed to foster confidence, which was all that was needed.

Such invocations of the confidence fairy were never plausible; researchers at the International Monetary Fund and elsewhere quickly debunked the supposed evidence that spending cuts create jobs. Yet influential people on both sides of the Atlantic heaped praise on the prophets of austerity, Mr. Cameron in particular, because the doctrine of expansionary austerity dovetailed with their ideological agendas.

Thus in October 2010 David Broder, who virtually embodied conventional wisdom, praised Mr. Cameron for his boldness, and in particular for “brushing aside the warnings of economists that the sudden, severe medicine could cut short Britain’s economic recovery and throw the nation back into recession.” He then called on President Obama to “do a Cameron” and pursue “a radical rollback of the welfare state now.”

Strange to say, however, those warnings from economists proved all too accurate. And we’re quite fortunate that Mr. Obama did not, in fact, do a Cameron.

My question is, why are beltway pundits so stupid? Do they start out that way, or is there something about Foggy Bottom that kills their brain cells?

Of course, many of ’em, and the politicians too, really just want to get rid of “entitlement” programs, and the Great Recession gave them an excuse.

The blog post “Destructive Austerity USA,” shows how budget cuts to state and local governments have been hurting the economy.

It’s hard to overstate just how wrong all this is. We have a situation in which resources are sitting idle looking for uses — massive unemployment of workers, especially construction workers, capital so bereft of good investment opportunities that it’s available to the federal government at negative real interest rates. Never mind multipliers and all that (although they exist too); this is a time when government investment should be pushed very hard. Instead, it’s being slashed.

What an utter disaster.

But, you know what they say — it’s all President Obama’s fault. “They” are idiots, of course.

Update: The utterly pathetic libertarian drones at Cafe Hayek have no argument to refute what Krugman says, so they just lie:

In his New York Times column today, Paul Krugman blames Britain’s economic woes on the British government’s alleged policy of “austerity.” Yet he offers no evidence that Her Majesty’s government is actually pursuing such a policy.

Here you go, pinheads:

U.K. Government Unveils Tough Austerity Plan : NPR (October 20, 2010)

UK Government Introduces Hardline Austerity Plan (October 20, 2010)

Pain of British Fiscal Cuts Could Inform U.S. Debate (April 14, 2011)

In the United States, the debate over how to cut the long-term budget deficit is just getting under way.

But in Britain, one year into its own controversial austerity program to plug a gaping fiscal hole, the future is now. And for the moment, the early returns are less than promising.

Retail sales plunged 3.5 percent in March, the sharpest monthly downturn in Britain in 15 years. And a new report by the Center for Economic and Business Research, an independent research group based here, forecasts that real household income will fall by 2 percent this year. That would make Britain’s income squeeze the worst for two consecutive years since the 1930s.

All of which has challenged the view of Britain’s top economic official, George Osborne, that during a time of high deficits and economic weakness, the best approach is to aggressively attack the deficit first, through rapid-fire cuts aimed at the heart of Britain’s welfare state.

George Osborne will stick to austerity programme despite halting output (July 23, 2011)

Osborne’s austerity program hits the rails (November 29, 2011)

His austerity plans cut far and fast. Osborne was told this would increase unemployment and it has. Increased joblessness has led to pronounced consumer pessimism. Shops are closing, putting more people out of work. Paying several hundred thousand more people unemployment benefits is driving up debt.

UK Sticking To Austerity Plan Despite GDP Drop – NASDAQ.com (5 days ago)

Cafe Hayek’s argument that Britain hasn’t really been engaged in an austerity program is that its budget deficit is still high and has gone higher. That’s because the bleeping austerity program isn’t working, you morons. More people out of work means two things:

1. Lower tax revenue
2. Higher spending

Duh. Of course, the crew at Hayek probably thinks the out-of-work Brits ought to just be allowed to drop dead in the streets, or should start eating babies.

Mitt Romney’s Blood Money

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Here’s another Mitt Romney Bain Capital video:

I’ve been checking this story out, and it appears to be all true. Basically: In 1989, while Mittens was CEO, Bain Capital bought a medical testing company called Damon Corporation. Bain took Damon public in 1991, and Mittens sat on the board of directors. Damon was sold to Corning in 1993 for a nice profit to Bain. Mittens personally made $473,000 on the deal, according to The Real Romney by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman.

Very soon thereafter the sale it was revealed that Damon had been under federal investigation, and in 1996 Damon pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud. They’d been over-billing Medicare for unnecessary tests. Federal prosecutors say that the over-billing was going on from 1988 to 1993, during the entire time the company was owned by Bain. The feds credited Corning for helping out the fraud; no word about Bain.

Today Mittens said he didn’t know about the fraud, but when he was running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he said that he had “blown the whistle” on Damon and had taken steps to stop the fraud. There’s no indication that Bain did anything except send some lawyers over to review Damon’s Medicare billing practices, which appears to have gone nowhere. In any event, no Bain executive, including Romney, was implicated in the fraud.

If Mittens is the nominee, I doubt this will be the last we’ll hear of the Damon Corporation and Labscam.