worship the glitch
This is Eric Mortensen's blog. He works @ Blip and lives in Brooklyn.
In 1990, AT&T announced its charitable foundation would end a 25 year-old tradition of giving to Planned Parenthood $50,000 annually, which funded teen pregnancy prevention programs. Still, AT&T wanted to distance itself from the association with abortion and end the pressure it was receiving from pro-life activists.
With AT&T’s decision to cut off funding, Planned Parenthood faced a set of problems beyond an immediate loss in funding. First, the fact that the company pulled the funding sent an encouraging signal to anti-abortion groups that their pressure tactics were working. Second, AT&T’s decision provided cover to other companies feeling similar heat from activists. The Komen incident today raises those same concerns.
When AT&T decided to cut its funding, Planned Parenthood’s president, Faye Wattleton, asked them to simply do so quietly. “I requested that they do so in a manner that would not encourage other corporations to back down,” Wattleton told TPM, “that would not empower the anti-choice organizations.” Instead, AT&T went public, and as Wattleton had warned AT&T over the phone, Planned Parenthood retaliated.
The women’s health group launched a national campaign, running ads in major newspapers with the headline “Caving to extremists, AT&T hangs up on Planned Parenthood.” Planned Parenthood received an outpouring of support and AT&T had to battle a public relations crisis similar to what the Komen Foundation faces now.
First of all, just a few days ago, Mr. Romney was denying that the very programs he now says take care of the poor actually provide any significant help. On Jan. 22, he asserted that safety-net programs — yes, he specifically used that term — have “massive overhead,” and that because of the cost of a huge bureaucracy “very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.”
This claim, like much of what Mr. Romney says, was completely false: U.S. poverty programs have nothing like as much bureaucracy and overhead as, say, private health insurance companies. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has documented, between 90 percent and 99 percent of the dollars allocated to safety-net programs do, in fact, reach the beneficiaries. But the dishonesty of his initial claim aside, how could a candidate declare that safety-net programs do no good and declare only 10 days later that those programs take such good care of the poor that he feels no concern for their welfare?
Also, given this whopper about how safety-net programs actually work, how credible was Mr. Romney’s assertion, after expressing his lack of concern about the poor, that if the safety net needs a repair, “I’ll fix it”?
This isn’t just a gaffe. Reasonable politicians of all political persuasions ought to be concerned about the very poor. Presidents must be. It is their job to be concerned about the very poor. It is their job to be concerned about everyone.
Mitt Romney should spend every waking moment trying to convince every single American that he cares about their needs. But he doesn’t care about their needs and he’s not ashamed to admit it.
If you’re not rich enough to fund a super PAC, Mitt Romney just isn’t interested.
Bill Maher on the fake Obama projected by the GOP.
via Andrew Sullivan
Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman.
This is, of course, obvious to any reasonable person. But still, it’s nice to have the quote.
“You may think it’s ethical to kill a child in the womb. But the question now before us is: is it ethical to then use that aborted child for research and development to enhance flavors in food?”
