••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Wednesday, February 29, 2012




Reporter: You told Peter Maier that there are right-wing radical ideologues who don't want people to have health care in this country. Who are you talking about? Who are these folks?

Mrs. Clinton: Well, you know I think they are a combination of the same kind of people who have been around in our country since its beginnings, the sort of ideologically-opposed who think that nobody should get anything from anybody else. And there's a streak of that in American politics. There always has been.

There are people who opposed social security, opposed civil rights, opposed minimum wage, opposed Medicare, opposed Medicaid. I mean at every step along the way, there is this small core of people who do not believe that government should do anything. Now they're the same people who drive down highways paid for by government funds. They are the same people who love the Defense Department which is funded by government money, but they have a different mind set when it comes to social policy in trying to be a compassionate and caring nation.

Then there are the people who for opportunistic reasons are opposing health care reform both because it is in their financial interest to do so because they want to be able to maintain the status quo and they are not above inciting other people to be very emotional about helping them to sustain their favored position. And then there are those who are for political reasons opposing health care reform because there are lots of people who don't want any changes and particularly don't want changes by this President to occur.

Now, most of the people I've just described are ones who pull the strings of others and inflame people by making charges of socialized medicine, for example, or the government is going to take over the health care system. And there's a very well-organized and well-financed effort to convey that message so that, for example, when you see people protesting in the streets as we saw a couple of weeks ago, as I personally saw in Seattle, they were there in large measure because they'd been inflamed by a local radio talk show host who finds it in his own personal financial opportunistic interest to take this position. I had no idea whether the man was insured or not, but he inflames people who are sitting at home that somehow the Clintons are going to take over the government and they're going to find themselves without a doctor or whatever their arguments are.

And if you talk to these people very often they don't have a clue about what health care reform is about. They are responding to these emotional kinds of attacks. And I just think that's part and parcel of what you always find when you look at moments of a lot of change converging at the same point in American history. You will find that strain of people. And I think it's very unfortunate, but it's something that is part of our political scene.

What I do not like and what I find regrettable is the amount of hatred that is being conveyed and really injected into our political system. I don't have any problem with anybody disagreeing with this President on any policy position. I don't have a problem with any member of Congress opposing health care reform because he doesn't think it's a good idea or he wants to use it as a political weapon. I mean, that's politics.

But this personal, vicious hatred that for the time being is aimed primarily at the President, and to a lesser extent myself, I think is very dangerous for our political process. And I think those who are encouraging it should think long and hard about the consequences of such encouragement. And in a free society, certainly people are free to say or do what they think furthers their political agenda.

But we have to draw the line on violence, and you have to draw the line on protests that incite violence. And a lot of the talk that is coming out is, to me, very sad, and I think we'll have very unfortunate consequences for our entire body politic and not just for this Administration. [more]
borowitz
February 28, 2012

Santorum Proposes Replacing Church, State with New Entity Called ‘Sturch’

Would Offer Salvation, Motor Vehicle Renewals on Sunday



Poll: Given Choice Between Romney and Santorum, Most Voters Choose Suicide

Survey Spells Trouble for GOP, Pollster Says



Santorum Makes Campaign Swing Through Seventeenth Century

Blasts Contraception, Electricity, Soap 

Monday, February 27, 2012

read these yesterday in the fox chase reading series at ryerss museum:

you know how much your dangly
earring turns me
on the way
it shakes & catches
light tho i'm looking
someplace else i seem
to hear it jingling
out the corner
of my eye so i
have to turn
& look with sweeping
glance along your cheek
taking in your flaring
nostril & your eye
in profile pretending
not to notice
me making me
want to take that
lobe between
my teeth surround it
with my mouth touch it
with the tip of
my tongue then move
my lips lightly along
the hairline down
the side of your neck
till they toy
with your shoulder then roll
forward to your collar-
bone & back
up side of windpipe
to the corner of your jaw
within easy
striking distance of that
lobe again?
6/90


TRADITIONL FAMLY VALUES

god n cntry
mothrhd n appl pi
hom whr hart iz
evr so humbl,no place like hom
man's hom hz castl
place t'hang yr hat
charity bgins at hom
spare rod,spoil child
tall oaks frm lil acorns gro
lil pitchrs hav big ears
childrn shd b seen,nt hrd
silnce goldn
luv blind
womn shd b seen,nt hrd
womn's place in th hom
kitchn n bedrm
barefoot n pregnant
on a pedestal
lady in drawng rm,whor in bed
womn's wrk nevr dn
two cn liv cheap as one
luv me,luv my dog
8/92



Saturday, February 25, 2012

read these last night at big blue marble books (first two aren't mine. found them on a wall in a john in the gallery next door to CBGB [CB's 313 gallery] back in the '90s):

we're all
in this
alone

wherever you are
you're on top
of the world

4 BEARS

tree bears bloom
bloom bears fruit
fruit bears seed
seed bears tree
4/91

bak in flu season
i hrd
newscastr say
½ folk caught flu
not vaccin8ed....

w8 a sec....
don' d@ mean
½ folk caught flu
did get vaccin8ed...?
3/04

some folk say "you are what you eat"
& there's something to be said
for that point of view
but when chips are down
in this material world
what you are is
what you do
5/90

NECESSITY V. JUST WAR

when war necessary
no other justification
needed

when not necessary
nothing else can
justify it
10/04

when you
feel low
like a victim
whole world out to get you
eat the flesh right off your bone
just remember
even carnivores
are made
of meat
2/92

each new day makes
one less left &
each day left worth
that much more than
the one before

love & hate both take time
the less spent on hate
the more left for love
02/94

Tuesday, February 21, 2012


Saturday, February 18, 2012

rightwingwatch

This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age. There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost two hundred years, once America's preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers.

He didn't have much success in the early days. Our foundation was very strong, in fact, is very strong. But over time, that great, acidic quality of time corrodes even the strongest foundations. And Satan has done so by attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.

He was successful. He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions. The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. He understood pride of smart people. He attacked them at their weakest, that they were, in fact, smarter than everybody else and could come up with something new and different. Pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it because they're smart. And so academia, a long time ago, fell.

And you say "what could be the impact of academia falling?" Well, I would have the argument that the other structures that I'm going to talk about here had root of their destruction because of academia. Because what academia does is educate the elites in our society, educates the leaders in our society, particularly at the college level. And they were the first to fall.

And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being education in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious to use both vanity and pride to also go after the Church.

After that, you start destroying the Church and you start destroying academia, the culture is where their next success was and I need not even go into the state of the popular culture today. Whether its sensuality of vanity of the famous in America, they are peacocks on display and they have taken their poor behavior and made it fashionable. The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.

The fourth, and this was harder, now I know you’re going to challenge me on this one, but politics and government was the next to fall. You say, ‘you would think they would be the first to fall, as fallible as we are in politics,’ but people in political life get elected by ordinary folks from lots of places all over the country where the foundations of this country are still strong. So while we may certainly have had examples, the body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades, but it is falling too. [more text & audio]

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

labor dept
pew
...
By contrast, higher-income Republicans took the opposite view; by roughly two-to-one (44% to 21%) Republicans with incomes of $75,000 or more said the government does too much, not too little, for poor people. [more]
wapo
justice, justice everywhere
& not a drop to drink



can you blame them?

Sunday, February 12, 2012

bbc

The Arab League is calling for a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission to end the 11-month conflict in Syria.

In a resolution seen by the BBC but not yet officially released, it scrapped its observer team, suspended last month, and said it was ending all diplomatic co-operation with Syria.

Damascus "categorically rejected" the resolution, a Syrian envoy said.

The League's moves come a week after a UN Security Council resolution on Syria was vetoed by Russia and China. [more]

breitbart/cpac

what ann coulter doesn't get is that health coverage is not insurance. insurance companies took over health maintenance organizations, thus confusing the issue. HMOs were started to give preventive care so folk could stay as healthy as possible.

insurance companies don't necessarily care about keeping us healthy. they took over the HMOs for one reason: profit. but they can make more money if we don't need expensive treatment, so they prefer prevention because it's cheaper.

and birth control is cheaper than childbirth.

so don't complain about your money getting spent on birth control. it may cost you less than the alternative.

breitbart v #ows





wow! i don't think breitbart could have given the movement better publicity if he'd been trying!
rwnj

npr/ap

Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music's queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, died Saturday. She was 48.

The Beverly Hills Police Department say Houston was found dead Saturday afternoon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The cause of death has not been reported. Her body remained in the hotel and Beverly Hills detectives were investigating.

Houston's death came on the eve of music's biggest night — the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once reigned, and her death was sure to cast a heavy pall on Sunday's ceremony.

The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy.
- Whitney Houston in a 2002 interview

"I am absolutely heartbroken at the news of Whitney's passing," music producer Quincy Jones said in a written statement. "I always regretted not having had the opportunity to work with her. She was a true original and a talent beyond compare. I will miss her terribly." [more]
rip
thinkprogress

JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson spoke out this morning in defense of the company’s new partnership with Ellen DeGeneres. The conservative group One Million Moms has called for a boycott against the store for “jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon,” but both JC Penney and DeGeneres have defended the partnership. Johnson told CBS News that he sees no controversy.... [more]

Saturday, February 11, 2012

thinkprogress

...Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) had quite an odd reaction to this effort to keep Enron’s friend off the federal courts, which he expressed in a speech given back when Republicans falsely claiming that no one had ever filibustered a judge for the first two centuries of the Republic:

I mean, imagine, the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is how we confirm judges — broken by the other side two year ago. And the audacity of some members to stand up and say “how dare you break this rule!” It’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying “I’m in Paris, how dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city?” This is no more the rule of the Senate than it was the rule of the Senate before not to filibuster.
[more]
nationalmemo/ap
...
Obama caved to the pressure on Friday, announcing a compromise that allows employees at religious-affiliated institutions to get free contraception directly from health insurance companies rather than employers who say it would violate their long-held convictions.

Almost immediately, Democrats who had disagreed with the White House backed the revised policy. So did Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States and a crucial player in both this debate and the fierce fight over Obama's health care overhaul law. The head of the nation's bishops called it a good first step but reserved final judgment.

The once formidable coalition against the president had splintered. Factions that had stood with the GOP cautiously backed Obama's midcourse correction. It was a necessary policy change that reversed the political dynamic. [more]
does GOP health plan cover abortions?

a few days ago i heard someone say on the radio that the republican national committee's employee health insurance includes abortion coverage.

turns out that was old news — old and out of date. a week or so after 64 house dems joined 176 GIGOP RWNJs to pass the stupak amendment in november 2009, POLITICO reported that RNC employees had been covered for abortions since 1991.

the party's red-faced then-chair michael steele quickly moved to opt out, which insurer cigna employees said the RNC could have done at any time but did not choose to do.

red-faced GIGOP RWNJ rep jack kingston of georgia was quoted by POLITICO as saying “they need to drop that clause.... from a philosophical standpoint, it’s inconsistent.... it makes me think someone isn’t scrutinizing the purchases.”

what? the party that ran this country's (and much of the world's) economy into the ground not scrutinize? impossible, jack! shame on you for even thinking such a thing, let alone suggesting it so publicly.

as red-faced pols all over the RW end of the spectrum denied knowledge of the policy [no pun intended], POLITICO also solicited comment from planned parenthood president cecile richards, who said it was “no surprise” that the RNC offered it.... “it’s an employer that wants to provide standard health benefits for its employees.... that’s why the stupak amendment goes too far in taking away benefits that women have today....”
wikipedia
mitt's daddy, george...
Romney entered politics by participating in a state constitutional convention to rewrite the Michigan Constitution during 1961–1962. He was elected Governor of Michigan in 1962 and was re-elected by increasingly large margins in 1964 and 1966. Romney worked to overhaul the state's financial and revenue structure, culminating in Michigan's first state income tax, and greatly expanded the size of state government. Romney was a strong supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement. He briefly represented moderate Republicans against conservative Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 U.S. presidential election. He requested the intervention of federal troops during the 1967 Detroit riot.

Romney was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 1968. While initially a front-runner, he proved an ineffective campaigner, and fell behind Richard Nixon in polls. Following a mid-1967 remark that his earlier support for the Vietnam War had been due to a "brainwashing" by U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Vietnam, his campaign faltered even more, and he withdrew from the contest in early 1968. Once elected president, Nixon appointed Romney Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Romney's ambitious plans for housing production increases for the poor, and for open housing to desegregate suburbs, were modestly successful but often thwarted by Nixon. Romney left the administration at the start of Nixon's second term in 1973. [more]
seems kinda — dare i say it? — liberal to me...

Thursday, February 09, 2012

npr

Lawmakers in Washington state voted Wednesday to legalize gay marriage, a move that would make the state the sixth in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed.

The Washington move came a day after California's ban on gay marriage was ruled unconstitutional. [more]
npr

Tai chi, the Chinese martial art involving slow and rhythmic movement, has been shown to benefit older people by maintaining balance and strength. Now, researchers have found that tai chi also helps patients who suffer from Parkinson's disease. [read or listen]
progress women/the hill

A majority of Catholics believe their employers should be required to provide coverage for contraception and birth control, according to a poll released Tuesday from the nonprofit research organization the Public Religion Research Institute.

The poll found that a solid majority of Catholics, 58 percent, say contraception and birth control should be a required, no-cost benefit under their company’s healthcare plan.

The president has been hammered in recent days by leaders in the Catholic Church, as well as his Republican rivals, for the administration’s decision to force employers, including religious institutions, to provide health insurance coverage for contraception.

At a Monday press conference, press secretary Jay Carney said churches and houses of worship would be exempt, and that some aspects, such as a possible “rider,” could still be included in the final plan.

Hospitals and charities run by the Catholic Church, however, would not be eligible for an exemption.

The PRRI poll shows broad support for employer-provided healthcare coverage for contraception and birth control, with 55 percent of all Americans saying they support the idea.

Sixty-one percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans, 73 percent of Democrats, 51 percent of political independents, 65 percent of young voters, 50 percent of white mainline Protestants and 62 percent of women were in favor of employer-provided healthcare coverage for contraception and birth control.

Only white evangelicals, at 38 percent, and men, at 47 percent, did not show majority support. [more] [less edited original in the hill]
using religious liberty to suppress women's liberty

GOP candidates have picked up the ball put into play by a group of conservative catholic bishops to attack president obama by claiming he attacks religious liberty by keeping birth control available to women who want it.

a few days ago i posted an article from catholic democrats that gives some of the history of that particular smear of obama. here's an excerpt:
The bishops' "religious liberty" campaign derived its origins in part from a 2009 conservative political document called "The Manhattan Declaration," written by Princeton Professor Robert George and endorsed by a broad range of Republican activists. George was a leading architect of what can only be labeled a campaign of hate speech toward candidate Obama in 2008, repeatedly labelling him as "the most pro-abortion candidate of either major political party in history." Archbishop Dolan and several other bishops with strong anti-Obama views signed that document, which claimed that there was a growing assault on religious liberty in America because Democrats refused to adopt Republican views on reversing Roe-vs-Wade and other conservative postures. Some bishops have now signed-on wholesale to the Republican view that President Obama is somehow out to get Catholics, despite his having a cabinet with an unprecedented number of Catholics....
on jstor.org i found a review of a 1993 book by professor george. consider this excerpt:
...he is consistently respectful of his opponents and careful in his attempts to present their arguments. ...george scrupulously avoids rhetorical excesses in favor of considered argument.
note how that contrasts with george's description of obama as "the most pro-abortion candidate of either major political party in history."

apparently the professor was once able to maintain objectivity in his academic pursuits but has more recently abandoned that ethical stance in his political activities.

too bad.

Tuesday, February 07, 2012




two weeks ago i became aware of a right-wing response to the state of the union speech on the human events website. the column by john hayward claimed obama misquoted lincoln and strongly suggested that he did so in order to usurp our freedom. i looked at the comments, saw that nearly all supported hayward, and jumped in to defend the one commenter who pled for reality. naturally i got sucked into responding to counterattacks and wound up posting about 75 comments over the next few days.

along the way i looked at the original transcript of the SOTU and saw that obama did not represent lincoln's idea as a quote. then i did a google search on a few words from hayward's excerpt of what he 3 times called lincoln's speech and found out it wasn't even a speech but some notes lincoln made in 1854. obama had paraphrased a short passage.

if you're interested in the combat, check it out here.
obama blog

...
The President opposed the Citizens United decision. He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view. He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections, a reform that was blocked in 2010 by a unanimous Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate. And the President favors action—by constitutional amendment, if necessary—to place reasonable limits on all such spending.

But this cycle, our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it currently stands.

Over the last few months, Super PACs affiliated with Republican presidential candidates have spent more than $40 million on television and radio, almost all of it for negative ads.

Last week, filings showed that the Super PAC affiliated with Mitt Romney's campaign raised $30 million in 2011 from fewer than 200 contributors, most of them from the financial sector. Governor Romney personally helped raise money for this group, which is run by some of his closest allies.

Meanwhile, other Super PACs established for the sole purpose of defeating the President—along with "nonprofits" that also aren't required to disclose the sources of their funding—have raised more than $50 million. In the aggregate, these groups are expected to spend half a billion dollars, above and beyond what the Republican nominee and party are expected to commit to try to defeat the President. [more]

Sunday, February 05, 2012

John Donne (1572-1631)
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee....

Saturday, February 04, 2012

politifact

...
Obama warned upon taking office that if "dramatic action" were not taken, "the unemployment rate could reach double digits," with the recession lasting for years.

But PolitiFact could find no evidence of anyone in the administration making a public pledge that the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.

When we asked Boehner's office what evidence he had, they provided a number of sources that confirmed the prediction. Those included a reference to Rep. Barney Frank -- a Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee -- saying that Obama and Democrats were saddled with a "false prediction" and that making the prediction "was a dumb thing to do."

There is an element of truth in Boehner’s statement. A report prepared by the incoming Obama administration did project that the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009. It has been above 8 percent since early in 2009.

We think it's a big stretch to call an economic projection a "promise." The administration never characterized it that way and included plenty of disclaimers saying the predictions had "significant margins of error" and a higher degree of uncertainty due to a recession that is "unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity."

Those are critical facts that the speaker’s claim ignores.

As we have ruled for others who have made this claim, we rate Boehner’s statement Mostly False. [more]
catholic democrats

Archbishop Dolan and the invention of the "attack on religious liberty" idea

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the president of the USCCB, is leading a campaign against the Obama Administration rooted in the charge that the Administration is somehow infringing on the "religious liberty" of Catholics. In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal, Archbishop Dolan cites Alexander Hamilton and the other authors of the US Constitution in an attempt to conflate expanded healthcare in America today with the concerns about established state religion in 18th Century England.
poverty.bmp
It is telling that the USCCB put out 17 press releases in January, eight of them dealing with "religious liberty." None of them dealt with poverty, despite January having been declared "Poverty Awareness Month" by the USCCB itself. At a time of continued economic duress for many Americans, the leaders of the bishops' conference seem to have lost interest in the one most unifying concern of Catholics: the plight of the poor. The USCCB webpage has numerous references to an attack on "religious liberty," and it urges Catholics to write to Congress to overturn HHS regulations insuring that workers for Catholic-affiliated institutions will have access to birth control like all other American workers. But with regard to poverty, the website merely urges that Catholics "Please visit and "like" our special Poverty Awareness Month Facebook page."
The bishops' "religious liberty" campaign derived its origins in part from a 2009 conservative political document called "The Manhattan Declaration," written by Princeton Professor Robert George and endorsed by a broad range of Republican activists. George was a leading architect of what can only be labeled a campaign of hate speech toward candidate Obama in 2008, repeatedly labelling him as "the most pro-abortion candidate of either major political party in history." Archbishop Dolan and several other bishops with strong anti-Obama views signed that document, which claimed that there was a growing assault on religious liberty in America because Democrats refused to adopt Republican views on reversing Roe-vs-Wade and other conservative postures. Some bishops have now signed-on wholesale to the Republican view that President Obama is somehow out to get Catholics, despite his having a cabinet with an unprecedented number of Catholics, and despite record spending through the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships for Catholic charitable efforts.
At a moment when middle class Americans continue to suffer economically, with all the ramifications for family life, the president of the USCCB is speaking to the wealthy readership of the Wall Street Journal with words tarring President Obama as somehow unsympathetic to Catholic sensibilities. This politicization of the Church may please Republicans in the pews, but it may well accelerate the departure of other thinking Catholics who expect more from their Church leaders.
oops! looks like i'm a bit late for poverty awareness month, but i'm quite aware of poverty, and the issues in the above article are well worth further awareness.
aaron furtado baldwin

anthony and elizabeth cady stanton were both abolitionists and were involved in the temperance movement for a few years, but are far better known for their work on women's suffrage and rights.
aaron furtado baldwin
[wikipedia brandeis entry]

Thursday, February 02, 2012

thinkprogress

you know, this ought to be obvious: the more of their unearned income the owners of capital get to keep, the less motivated they will be to use their capital to produce earned income.

in other words, why create jobs when you can make more money trading securities?
borowitz



we can laugh now. i just hope this sweet mirth won't turn bitter in our bellies...

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

ap

NEW YORK — The nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

Planned Parenthood says the move results from Komen bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen says the key reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress — a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups.

The rupture, which has not been publicly announced as it unfolded, is wrenching for some of those who’ve learned about it and admire both organizations.

“We’re kind of reeling,” said Patrick Hurd, who is CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia — recipient of a 2010 grant from Komen — and whose wife, Betsi, is a veteran of several Komen fundraising races and is currently battling breast cancer.

“It sounds almost trite, going through this with Betsi, but cancer doesn’t care if you’re pro-choice, anti-choice, progressive, conservative,” Hurd said. “Victims of cancer could care less about people’s politics.”

Planned Parenthood said the Komen grants totaled roughly $680,000 last year and $580,000 the year before, going to at least 19 of its affiliates for breast-cancer screening and other breast-health services. [more]

komen, are you people crazy? look what kos is saying about you:

Cancer screening and prevention comprises 17 percent of Planned Parenthood's services. For many low-income women, Planned Parenthood is their only source of health care. By going along with anti-choice extremists who are determined to put Planned Parenthood out of business, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is essentially saying it doesn't matter if low-income women get breast cancer.

cowardice is no mere lack of courage. it is the denial of conscience.
left action