It was an onslaught of savvy PR tactics yesterday that brought the Susan G. Komen Foundation to its knees, apparently prompting the organization’s retreat today from its initial decision to cut its funding to Planned Parenthood.  As Politico reported this morning:

On a day when the breast cancer charity’s top official made the rounds with the national media, insisting the organization’s decision to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood wasn’t political, the firestorm only got worse. Top Democrats piled on; the head of the Komen chapter in Los Angeles quit; and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving a $250,000 matching gift to Planned Parenthood.

The Atlantic Wire reports that the Susan G. Komen foundation’s website was even hacked, for some period displaying a banner that had been changed from “help us get 26.2 or 13.1 miles closer to a world without breast cancer“  to read, “help us run over poor women on our way to the bank.”  And the long repeated myth that the current Komen CEO takes home a half a million dollar salary was brought back to life yesterday – even though the truth is that Komen’s current CEO, Nancy Brinker, takes home $0 in annual salary.

But hey, breast cancer isn’t supposed to be political, right?

Officials with the Susan G. Komen foundation had insisted the initial decision was never political, that it was about providing more direct mammography screening services for women, according to Nancy Brinker, the charity’s founder and CEO.  From Politico:

“We’ve always had the right to cancel contracts if a group was under investigation,” Brinker said on a conference call with reporters. “We simply extended that right to organizations who apply for funding. Three of the 19 Planned Parenthood affiliates will continue to receive funding, and there will be no gap in services for any woman who needs care.”

Brinker said there was broad consensus from Komen’s board over the new policies. Additionally, she said the charity was trying to refocus grants on providers that are able to perform mammography services rather than just breast screenings. Planned Parenthood does not have mammography equipment and refers women to providers for the service.

Susan G. Komen Foundation paid $46,861,000 overall in 2010 on breast cancer screenings, according to the foundation’s most recently available annual report from 2010.  The Associated Press reports that Planned Parenthood received $580,000 in grants from the foundation for screenings that year, and that Planned Parenthood says it has performed 170,000 breast exams over the past five years as a result of Komen grants.  That would average out to 34,000 screenings annually, a small percentage of Susan G. Komen’s total screenings.  Given that Planned Parenthood merely serves a pass-through and refers women to other providers for mammogram screenings, the foundation could certainly maximize its spending by cutting out the middle man and funding such providers directly, especially those that provide all the screening tests in one location.

But after taking to social media yesterday to whip Planned Parenthood supporters into a frenzy, liberal outlets today are claiming a victory for women’s wellness, calling Susan G. Komen foundation “bullies” who would have hurt low-income women who turn to Planned Parenthood for health care.  Over the course of the day, the fury drummed up $3 million for Planned Parenthood for breast care services – a number that far outweighs what Susan G. Komen was providing annually.

To those who are skeptical that Planned Parenthood is the bastion of women’s wellness with all the best interests of women in mind that its fervent supporters claim it is, Slate points out that there are in fact some legitimate concerns regarding Planned Parenthood.

“…in reading  the report put together by Americans United for Life, which helped launch the investigation, there are some legitimate concerns. Planned Parenthood offices in California, New Jersey, New York, and Washington state have at various times been audited by state and federal authorizes and discovered to have been overbilling state agencies and committing other improper billing practices. Further, Planned Parenthood has a record of not reporting instances of sexual abuse—and I’m not talking about 16-year-old girls who come in with their 19-year-old boyfriends. The AUL report documents a case in which a 13-year-old girl was raped by an older foster brother and was impregnated—twice. Planned Parenthood is required, if it wants to receive federal funds, to comply with mandatory reporting laws.”

In viewing the 181 page report from Americans United for Life, there are a key number of claims against Planned Parenthood that initiated those investigations:

• Misuse of federal health care and family planning funds.
• Failure to report criminal child sexual abuse.
• Failure to comply with parental involvement laws.
• Assisting those engaged in prostitution and/or sex trafficking.
• Dangerous misuse of the abortion drug RU-486.
• Misinformation about so-called “emergency contraception,” including ella.
• Willingness to provide women with inaccurate and misleading information.
• Willingness to refer to substandard clinics.

Meanwhile, before Susan G. Komen foundation had reversed its funding decision today, it had received numerous donations from supporters who are pro-life and do not agree with Planned Parenthood’s business model, which they say is primarily focused on providing abortions.  So the remaining question is, will those people who donated to Susan G. Komen  now demand the return of their donations?  Most legal experts say that unless donations are made on a conditional basis up front, they’re not likely to see that money again, not unless Susan G. Komen voluntarily offers to return it.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean Komen’s new donors couldn’t (or shouldn’t) try.

No one wants to see anyone lose their job, but the New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, and all the rest are nothing more than lairs for arch-villains, and when these hollowed-out volcanoes are bankrupted, the virtue of this outweighs what happens to the faceless henchmen who are now out on the streets looking for work. I wish them luck. I wish things were different. But this is about saving our country and humanity.

Over in England, some are openly panicking over the future of newspapers:

Referring to this December report on the least desirable endorsements (“According to a Marist poll, 79 percent of New Hampshire voters say getting Trump’s support would make them less likely or no more likely to vote for him or her”), Jesse Benton, spokesman for Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), e-mails me, “Poor Newt. Based on the polling I’ve seen, he stands to lose 5 points from this circus act.” As for Trump, Benton cracks, “I didn’t think it was possible for Trump to lower his credibility, but somehow, he just did.”

Perhaps it was the Donald’s appreciation for Mitt Romney’s unproductive style of governance in Massachusetts that caused him to settle on Mitt, or maybe he simply longs to sing a duet of America the Beautiful with him – we may never know. But rest assured, give it a day, or two and the light, life and inspiration of conservativism, our dear Jenn Rubin of the Washington Post will somehow manage to convince herself that joining them for a little three part harmony would just be the bomb. Let’s wait and see.

… all of these pro-Newt characters share a penchant for extreme, nasty rhetoric with a disdain for productive governance. This is all about THEM and their PR machines.

Really, what’s next for Newt — a Duke Cunningham endorsement from a jail cell?

Well, that’s unclear as this entire Trump Mitt fiasco is Trump’s doing, not Newt’s. The better question may be, what’s next for Jennifer Rubin? I mean, really, can one top a face plant into irrelevance from the height of Trump Tower? I’m not so certain. But if there’s a way to embarass oneself more completely than Rubin did, I have utmost confidence in dear Jenn Rubin’s ability to stumble upon it before the 2012 primary is over.

—–

Well, I guess it’s okay to use the slur “cracker” for the for the same reason it’s okay to use the N-word. Some in the black community use the N-word and some in Florida use the word “cracker.”

Oh, wait; it’s not okay to use the N-word.

Anyway, what does logic have to do with the mainstream media justifying and rationalizing anything they do? But justify and rationalize Jonathan Martin did when he called in to Newsbusters to justify and rationalize his use of the word “cracker.”

You can read the whole thing here, but this is my all-time favorite part:

Let’s face it, you were on MSNBC where virtually every criticism of Barack Obama they report as being somehow racist.”

“Totally agree that there is now a culture in the sort of political media universe on both sides where there is this sort of outrage industry that has been created where both sides monitor the other and try to find examples of offensive comments that can be seized upon and stirred up entirely for political gain where you have this, again, faux indignation, but it’s really just posing as indignation,” he said. “It’s all about political point scoring, and I think it absolutely takes place now on both sides.”

He elaborated, “It’s the same goal, and it’s to try to catch the other side in saying something that is going to be received as offensive or outrageous or politically damaging or what have you. That’s the game, okay? But keep me out of it, alright?”

“Keep me out of it.”

That’s rich coming from a guy who investigated a private citizen after that private citizen had the temerity to ask then-candidate Obama a question that created a political problem for The Teleprompter-less One.

And isn’t it interesting how Martin has all this time on his hands to articulate a case against what he sees as a cynical game of racial gotcha when it’s him in the cross-hairs, but as a POLITICAL reporter he’s apparently too busy to put the same effort into exposing and deconstructing this game when it’s played by others… against conservatives.

I guess that when Obama’s supporters and the MSM and Politico itself engages in racial gotcha to stifle debate, Martin doesn’t see that as worthy of a story, something that should be exposed for what it is. Moreover, Martin’s obviously not so principled against this tactic that he isn’t willing to appear on MSNBC, the very network that patented and never stops engaging in this tactic.

But when he thinks it’s happening to him, you can expect a phone call!

If Martin doesn’t want to write about how Politico’s pals at MSNBC and Media Matters (click those links for the full story) have made a cottage industry out of racial gotchas, you’d think that his principled opposition to such things would at least put a stop to it in the predominantly Caucasian Politico newsroom. You’d think that before Martin called up NewsBusters, he’d take a moment to…

Clean. Up. His. Own. Backyard.

Martin’s got all kinds of time to dig up 15 year-old nothingburgers about Herman Cain and then participate in and encourage a feeding frenzy around them that even left-wing media watchdogs said went too far. He’s got all kinds of time to defend himself from rules written by his own occupation and publication. But where’s the deconstruction of all this “political point scoring” when Politico engages in it, when the left and their allies in the MSM relentlessly engage in it?

There isn’t any; in fact, it’s just the opposite. Politico amplifies and makes news and aids and abets this racial demagoguery as much as anyone.

Jonathan Martin made some pretty persuasive arguments for why it’s okay for him to use the word “cracker,” but it appears as though he’s saving that defense only for himself. He’s too busy doing the real reporter-ing needed to investigate private citizens and take down GOP candidates.

Living by the sword is one thing. Dying by the sword is another. But whining about the sword is simply pathetic.

• Media Matters still refuses to condemn the violence in the Media Matters-endorsed OWS movement.
• Media Matters also refuses to answer why a “media site” is seemingly in violation of the rules binding 501 c(3)s by politicking. They were caught sending out emails to their “Democrat allies” last week.
• After failing to force censorship of Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch the week prior (and again today), Media Matters is attempting the same blacklist technique with Red State’s Erick Erickson. What’s unclear is whether the motivation comes from their intolerance of diverse thought on the airwaves or bitterness at the lack of invitations MMFA staffers, namely Editor Eric Boehlert, receive themselves from networks.
• MMFA Editor Boehlert also refused to condemn or disavow his site’s use of the slur “Israel firster.” MMFA has received heavy criticism for its continued use of the slur, even after its use was criticized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and MMFA ally and former journolister Spencer Ackerman.
• MMFA still hasn’t walked back its claim that the insider trading scandal, which resulted in the now-passed STOCK Act, wasn’t ‘a big deal.’

OUTSTANDING ITEMS

Media Matters has yet to correct these glaring mistakes:

• MMFA owes Loesch an apology for Boehlert’s embarrassing meltdown wherein he launched into a bitterly sexist rant directed towards her.
• MMFA has issued no comment on how CAP even called MMFA’s apparent favorite term “antisemitic.”

This is why no actual media outlet takes Media Matters seriously and why some call them, with their comical propaganda, “irrelevant.” The only network you’ll see them on is MSNBC.

I’ve mentioned before it’s unusual for the Old Media to run any Fast and Furious news if the AP didn’t run something first. Same thing with this story. AP didn’t bother to post a story about Mr. Issa, but as soon as Mr. Holder says something they’re all over it. It’s quite pathetic and reminds me of Pavlov’s dog. This is the explanation of Mr. Issa’s letter:

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., made the accusation in a letter threatening to seek a contempt of Congress ruling against Attorney General Eric Holder for failing to turn over congressionally subpoenaed documents that were created after problems with Fast and Furious came to light. Holder was to testify Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs.

That’s it. No mention that this is a response to his subpoena on October 12, 2011. No mention of the emails sent Friday night. But the media goes crazy and reprints this article.

Not every outlet used the AP story though. The Washington Post again had an original piece written by Sari Horwitz! Weird, isn’t it, that she writes original posts when the DOJ and Democrats are on the defense. Surprise surprise! The story is on the front page of the website.

The Post to the rescue! The poor justice official Deputy Attorney General James Cole says it just isn’t possible to get all the documents ready by February 9th. Ms. Horwitz really makes the DOJ a victim of the awful bully Mr. Issa. She fails to tell you that these documents are from a subpoena that was issued on OCTOBER 12, 2011. They’ve had FOUR months. That’s F-O-U-R months Ms. Horwitz. How convenient Ms. Horwitz didn’t explain why Mr. Issa is resorting to contempt of Congress. Again, only reporting ONE side. No bias here!

CNN is no better. The author, Terry Frieden, didn’t bother to mention that the documents he is demanding is from his subpoena on, let’s say it together, October 12, 2011. Again, it makes it look like Mr. Issa is giving the DOJ an impossible task. Mr. Frieden hides relevant information which makes Mr. Issa appear as if he’s throwing accusations around. Mr. Frieden could have posted the emails they received last Friday that prove Mr. Breuer supported gun walking. But he doesn’t and Mr. Issa looks like a bully. No bias!

It’s obvious they don’t care how bias this makes them look. If they were truly neutral they’d cover both stories or neither. I cannot wait to see how they cover Mr. Holder’s testimony. I bet Mr. Issa is going to be so tough on him. I’ll shed a tear or two … for Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Rest In Peace Brian Terry. We Won't Forget.

The media’s biggest fear is Obama losing his upcoming reelection, and Rubio is the kind of VP candidate that keeps the corrupt MSM up at night. Not only could he help swing the all-important Hispanic vote into GOP territory; he also hails from the all-important swing state of Florida.

The nightmare scenario for Obama’s MSM Palace Guards is this attractive, articulate young man taking it to Obama on the campaign trail while wrapped in the mantle of history as the very first Hispanic nominated as vice president.

Unfortunately, the MSM is corrupt but not dumb, which is why over the last few months we’ve seen two major pushes from two major news outlets to discredit, toxify, and marginalize Rubio. Oh, and both of those stories were riddled with factual errors that we’re assured were nothing more than honest mistakes.

The first hit came from The Washington Post back in October. Their information was so blatantly wrong that early one Saturday morning I caught them red-handed quietly scrubbing away their mistakes from the hit piece. This is what I wrote at the time:

How about that? Suddenly those so-called embellishments aren’t part of some “dramatic account” on Senator Rubio’s part. The difference might just be a few words, but those words make all the difference in the world. It’s also worth noting that I saw no editorial notes indicating any changes had been made to the original story. …

Race. Race. Race. And all of it is motivated by race and generated to protect Obama. …

The Rubio hit was designed to take down an attractive Hispanic Republican for fear he might be the 2012 vice presidential nominee and drain away enough Hispanic votes to make The MSM’s Precious One a one-termer.

You bet it’s about race. An attractive Republican who is not Caucasian represents an existential threat to the Democrat party and their media allies, which brings me to the Reuters fiasco from just last week. This error-ridden hit job was wishfully titled: Florida’s Rubio a star, but an unlikely VP pick. The author is David Adams, and the goal is obviously to do to Rubio what the MSM does to all left-wing apostates, which is question their identity.

You see, according to the media, you can’t be a conservative and a woman, black, or Hispanic:

In a Latino Decisions tracking poll last year, 72 percent of Hispanic voters said Republicans either “didn’t care” or were “hostile” to their community.

It is unclear whether Rubio is the right choice to fix the party’s image. He has not endeared himself to Hispanic voters on several fronts, analysts say.

He opposed the so-called DREAM Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, and he expressed support for a harsh immigration law in Arizona.

Rubio opposed President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and more recently blocked the confirmation of another Puerto Rican, Marie Carmen Aponte, as ambassador to El Salvador.

He also opposed Obama’s healthcare overhaul, which is popular among many low-income Hispanics.

“He’s on the wrong side on every issue that matters to Hispanics,” said Fernand Amandi with Bendixen & Amandi, a political consulting firm in Miami that has been retained by the Obama campaign. “He’s going to have to answer to those positions.”

That’s nothing more than left-wing opinion disguised as objective analysis. Par for the MSM course. But this hit-piece was so outrageously over the top in its zeal to destroy Rubio and turn its own headline into reality that no less than five corrections had to be made after it was published and, according to the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis, two factually incorrect mistakes remain uncorrected.

How about that? Glaring, larger-than-life factual errors from two big, wealthy, fact-check-heavy MSM outlets like the “legendary” Washington Post and Reuters.

I’m sorry, but that seems inconceivable to me, and both episodes remind me an exchange of dialogue in Otto Preminger’s 1959 courtroom classic, “Anatomy of a Murder”:

Defendant (Aside): How can the jury disregard what it already heard?

Defense Attorney: It can’t.

As the Washington Post scrubbed and Reuters chiseled, both did so safe in the knowledge that nowhere near as many members of the jury read the correction as read their original hit.

As far as I know, no disciplinary action has been taken against the authors of either piece.

I wonder why.

Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t wonder at all.

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.

NPR’s opening salvo contains the usual argument for supporting Komen’s involvement with Planned Parenthood; PP’s use of Komen funds for offering “breast exams” to women at their clinics. This argument contains some very serious flaws, as Jenny Erikson points out in her piece here (please note Jenny’s piece has been attacked by the Left):

Sure, they say the money goes for breast health exams, but money is liquid. Once it goes into the bank, it’s grouped with all the money that’s in there, and then it’s paid out for expenses. It’s like having a dual-income household with a joint checking account. The mortgage isn’t paid with one income and groceries with the other; they’re both paid out of the same checking account.

Besides, Planned Parenthood doesn’t even offer mammograms, which are the surest way to detect early signs of cancer. How much money do they need to be able to tell a patient, “Yup, that feels like a lump — here’s the number for a place that can actually help you”? [my emphasis]

Essentially all of the funds are co-mingled meaning that they may be used for any purpose, not just breast exams. This argument is a red herring used by PP to keep their funding from Komen while trying to make Komen’s involvement with them more palatable to the growing number of donors choosing not to give to Komen. Whether or not Komen acknowledges it, this was clearly a growing issue for them,

Life Decisions International includes Komen on its “boycott list” of companies and organizations that support or collaborate with Planned Parenthood. In December, Lifeway Christian Resources, the publishing division of the Southern Baptist Convention, announced a recall of pink Bibles it had sold because some of the money generated for Komen was being routed to Planned Parenthood

The author of the NPR piece goes on:

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has depicted Stearns’ probe as politically motivated and said she was dismayed that it had contributed to Komen’s decision to halt the grants to PPFA affiliates.

“It’s hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women’s lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying,” Richards told The Associated Press. “It’s really hurtful.”

The Left and Planned Parenthood cannot look past their embrace of the culture of death to realize their mission is really not about saving lives. In fact, PP’s mission is so repugnant it has to be researched to be believed. Short summaries may be found here and here.

Komen, however,  is the antithesis of PP. Komen’s mission since their founding has always been about women’s health and actually saving lives. In fact, since its inception in 1982, Komen has contributed nearly $1.9 billion to the fight against breast cancer.

NPR wants to emphasize where they believe the blame lies:

That investigation [by Rep. Stearns], which has no set timetable, was launched in September when Stearns asked Planned Parenthood for more than a decade’s worth of documents.

Stearns, in a statement emailed to the AP on Monday, said he is still working with Planned Parenthood on getting the requested documents. He said he is looking into possible violations of state and local reporting requirements, as well as allegations of financial abuse, and would consider holding a hearing depending on what he learns.

Democrats and Planned Parenthood supporters have assailed the probe as an unwarranted political ploy.

Of course they think the probe is unwarranted. Anything that could interrupt the flow of tax-payer dollars to fund their precious sacrament of abortion is unacceptable. The reality is, not one penny of taxpayer money should be used to fund abortions. Assuring publicly-funded abortions don’t happen is, of course, a political ploy to the Left, but it is something the majority of Americans oppose.

The essence of this NPR piece is that women should be embittered by the decision Komen made. They claim it will affect the ability of women to receive the proper care they need and will lead to loss of life. The reality is, Komen is not going to be impeded in their ability to provide breast care because they are going to find out what has long been known to be true; people who are generally conservative are much more generous with their own money. Planned Parenthood is a death factory, first and foremost, and will likely find it more difficult to replace the lost funds. Jenny Erikson offeres a tremendously prescient conclusion:

Understandably, some people decided to stop writing checks to Susan G. Komen in protest of their support of Planned Parenthood. Therefore the Komen people made the decision to stop funding them. If it backfires and they lose more support from this decision, they can always go back to the way things were.

Now where’s my checkbook? I have a donation I’d like to make to support breast cancer research for a cure, and to say thanks to Susan G. Komen for just saying no to Planned Parenthood.

Click here to donate online.

Komen’s donations are up 100% over the last two days. However, it may not be a happy ending after all as the group appears to be narrowing its earlier distance from Planned Parenthood:

With cross-over media and careers being so much in vogue today, should it really be a surprise that what may work, or be fine in one medium, could be interpreted as inappropriate on another? And why is it that only conservative voices seem to suffer this guilt by association, generated by the Left, to try and get them kicked off the air? This despicable political tactic deserves to be called out for what it is, the modern day equivalent of book burning.

Call it a Vast Left-wing Conspiracy, or some interesting connections if you follow New Media. It seems that not long after former Politico staffer Ben Smith moved to Buzzfeed, Politico may now be linking up with Buzzfeed to put some distance between itself and ideologically-biased media outlet Media Matters.

The most aggressive would be book burner at Politico these days appears to be Dylan Byers. After going after Big Journalism editor, Dana Loesch, he’s now targeted Erick Erickson for comments made on his AM radio show.

BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray flags a comment from CNN political contibutor Erick Erickson that could cause problems for the network:

CNN commentator and conservative blogger Erick Erickson described the tasing of an Occupy D.C. protester as “hilarious” and “made of awesome” on his radio show yesterday. “Watching a hippie protester get tased just makes my day,” he said.

However, if one clicks through to Buzzfeed, you’ll see that the attack actually comes from Media Matters.

CNN commentator and conservative blogger Erick Erickson described the tasing of an Occupy DC protester as “hilarious” and “made of awesome” on his radio show yesterday. “Watching a hippie protester get tased just makes my day,” he said.

One can defend Erickson’s comments as humor totally appropriate for the audience and the medium, or as using absurdity to make a point. But the sad facts is, it shouldn’t need defending at all. As with the vicious recent attacks on Dana Loesch, radio and television are two different entities and require different presentation. I think most people get that and unless any individuals in question begin making jokes or illustrating points not really very shocking by today’s standards on AM radio on this, or that particular other network, one would hope they continue to have the respect for the First Amendment and free association, to include cross-over between different strains of media, that all Americans deserve.

Now if only the nannies over at Media Matters would get that, though, it’s doubtful under the leadership of chief nanny, cook and bottle washer, Eric Boehlert.