Misunderestimating Donald Trump 5/27/16

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Kevin S. Willis

I feel like Donald Trump has a good chance of winning the Whitehouse for two major reasons: his populism (a novel campaign strategy in this day and age), and the Democrats’ and the left’s lack of understanding as to what his appeal actually is (arguably, this is why his Republican opponents in the primaries lost, as well).

From the Plum Line this morning:

Donald Trump just made an extremely important promise. It’s one of his worst yet.

Believe it or not, Donald Trump has now made a very important policy statement. Introducing what he billed as an “energy plan,” Trump promised to “cancel the Paris Climate Plan.” Unlike so much of what comes from Trump on policy, this is a genuinely clarifying moment, with potentially enormous long-term implications.

Of course, Greg Sargent thinks this is an awful idea, one that dooms any hope Donald had of being president, if in no small part because it means Bernie and Hillary will totally definitely team up to stop Trump now, and that’s all it will take: Bernie and Hillary teaming up. The part where cancelling the Paris Climate Accords actually appeals to a lot of people, and increasing domestic energy production appeals to even more . . . that doesn’t seem to enter into it.

I think that’s just wrong. And the more the Democrats allow themselves to be painted as (or paint themselves as) the side where “it’s sad domestic energy production is losing all those jobs, but, eh, what can you do?” versus Trump’s promise of increasing domestic energy sector jobs and production (never mind the specifics, it’s magic!), the more I think they are mistaking what makes the difference between victory and defeat in November.

I also think it’s interesting that, for Greg Sargent, the significant thing about Trump’s “energy plan” (so-called) is how it will impact the Hillary/Sanders dustup. That’s the take away. Not that Trump’s own dismissal of climate change as an apocalyptic inevitability might actual appeal to Independents or swing-voters, not to mention his promise of supporting domestic energy production.

I don’t think Anthropogenic Climate Change is a big winner for the Democrats. Independents and Republicans can be peeled away by lots of things, such as talk of jobs (green energy jobs!) or ending of perpetual military engagement or promises of financial benefits to the middle class, but I think the prioritization of Climate Change as the Most Important Thing Ever is not the political talisman many seem to think it is. And Donald saying he’s going to pull America out of the Paris Climate Accords (pretty much just posturing bullhockey anyway, good for politicians to preen over and little else) is not going to send shockwaves and fear and disgust through the American electorate.

And it’s just one way they seem to be misunderestimating The Donald.

Filed under: politics | 40 Comments »

Liberal Linguistic Lies

Posted on July 20, 2014 by ScottC

I have long believed that a key component of the left’s political success over the last century has been its masterful use of deceptive language to frame both issues and their own political positions in ways that make them much more palatable to an unthinking public than they otherwise would be if they were presented more honestly. Indeed, even the use of the term “liberal” to characterize themselves is a bit of a deception in historic terms, since liberal originally indicated someone who favored free trade and limited government, quite the opposite of what liberals have now become. Anyway, with that in mind, I have cobbled together a list of common liberal linguistic lies of our modern age. Feel free to add to the list.

1. Women’s Health – When liberals speak about “women’s health” in a political context, they aren’t really talking about the health of women. They are actually speaking about abortion. So when someone says, for example, that “It’s time to remove politics from women’s health care”, what they really mean is “Abortion should be legal and immune to the processes of democracy.”

2. Reproductive rights/freedom – Like “women’s health”, this is just another liberal euphemism for abortion. Which is a bit bizarre if you think about it, because, if one did not already possess the freedom/right to reproduce, how could one possibly be in a position to need/want an abortion?

3. Marriage Equality – We’ve talked about this one extensively here at ATiM in the past. “Marriage equality” actually has nothing do with equal rights to marry, as liberals try to deceive us into believing, but is instead a call for changing the very definition of marriage from what it has always been to something new such that it can encompass homosexual relationships. Throughout US history homosexuals have always had the very same right to marry someone of the opposite sex that heterosexuals have had. But what they want is a new right, namely the right to “marry” someone of the same sex. Since, due to the very meaning of the term “marriage”, no one, not even heterosexuals, has ever had that right ever before in the US, what they want is not “equality” but rather a new conception of the notion of marriage.

4. War on (fill in the blank) – When liberals say that someone is engaging in a War on X, they don’t mean that one is literally or even figuratively waging a war on X. They simply mean that the person disagrees with them over some political issue that is really important to them. And often the issue isn’t even related to X. For example, the War on Women usually refers to just advocacy for stricter abortion laws. When Obama spoke of Bush’s War on Science, what he really meant was that he had a moral/ethical disagreement with regard to what the government should be funding.

5. Deny – The other day, following SCOTUS’ Hobby Lobby decision, Democrat Elizabeth Warren characterized the decision as giving corporations the power to “deny their employees access to birth control.” Of course the court gave no such power to “deny access” to anything at all. What she actually meant was that the court recognized that certain corporation owners have the right not to have to pay for certain kinds of birth control that are, nonetheless, still legally accessible to their employees. And this is not an isolated instance of such an idiosyncratic use of the term “deny” by liberals. For example, if one thinks that the government shouldn’t dictate what an employer has to pay employees, then one wants to “deny equal pay to women”.

6. invest/subsidize – Liberals often use the word “investment” when what they actually mean is “subsidy”, and then they use “subsidize” when what they actually mean is “not force to pay more money”. So when the government gives money or guarantees to companies like Solyndra and Tesla, it is “investing”, but when doesn’t raise the minimum wage, it is “subsidizing” corporations.

Filed under: Open Thread, politics | 14 Comments »

What the Hell is a Moderate Anyway?

Posted on May 30, 2013 by lmsinca

I enjoy reading political writers who have both a sense of humor and ask thought provoking questions.  When I read this brief piece by booman, it resonated with me.

What constitutes moderation in Democratic politics? Which policies of mainstream Democrats are simply unacceptable to South Dakotans, for example? I think these are questions that need to be empirically tested. South Dakota clearly preferred Mitt Romney to Barack Obama, but it isn’t entirely clear why they felt that way. While Republicans absolutely dominate on the local level, the Democrats have done very well in recent years on the federal Senate/House level. Why is that?

These same dynamics have played out in North Dakota and Montana, where Democrats have over performed in Senate contests. Senators like Max Baucus, Jon Tester, Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad, Tim Johnson, and Tom Daschle have certainly been frustrating at times, but it’s hard to find all that much commonality between them in terms of their apostasy from the party platform. I suppose they have probably been less environmentally friendly than your average Democrat. They’ve been cozy with the banking and credit card industries. They’ve been a bit more socially conservative than their peers.

If I had to name something really out of whack, it’s been their obsession with the deficit. Because the other stuff is easily explainable by the fact that they represent sparsely-populated states with a lot of mining and financial services activity and not much religious or ethnic diversity, their love of austerity sticks out.

Opposition to big spending seems to be a requirement in these northern plains states. Is that the key ingredient for success? Or is it possible to use a different playbook? How much of a role does personality play? Jon Tester and Max Baucus don’t seem much alike but they both have success. Kent Conrad struck me as quite a bit more conservative than Byron Dorgan, who could be quite openly partisan at times.

I understand the urge to find a candidate who is seen as moderate, but I can’t pinpoint what moderate really means.

I’m working with a group trying to find a congressional candidate to support who will run against our very conservative congressman here.  The last time we came close to beating him was in 2008 and we had a pretty progressive candidate who barely lost.  In 2010 the same candidate lost by a larger percentage.  And 2012 was awful.  We lost by 25 or 30 percentage points I think, but we’re not sure if it was from redistricting or because of a new and relatively unknown candidate.   Both worked against us of course, but which played the larger part?

We’re a very conservative district, perhaps even more so now, and so I’ve been arguing for a more moderate candidate but I think I’m being out voted.  It’s a pretty liberal group so they want the most progressive candidate we can find.

One of the aspects of politics today that I’ve been fascinated watching is the apparent growing split in the Republican Party between the more ideologically driven members of the base or Tea Party and more traditional or moderate conservatives.  As I’m sure everyone has already heard Bob Dole had a few things to say about today’s Republican Party.

“Reagan couldn’t have made it. Certainly, Nixon couldn’t have made it because he had ideas,” he pointed out. “I just consider myself a Republican, none of this hyphenated stuff. I was a mainstream conservative Republican. It seems to be almost unreal that we can’t get together on a budget or legislation,” Dole said, comparing today’s Congress unfavorably with the institution in which he served for decades. “We weren’t perfect by a long shot, but at least we got our work done.”

Another example, of course, would be John McCain’s criticism of the small group of Senators who appear to be blocking budget negotiations.

I consider myself a moderate on some issues and a progressive on others but I’d still rather be represented by a Democrat than a Republican so I’m willing to compromise a bit.

It’s funny, when Kevin picked the name for this blog, I told him I wasn’t a moderate but now I’m not so sure what that even means or if it matters.

I’m also wondering if any of the conservatives here worry about the same things I do.   Are they being too driven by the base, or political purity, when they might have a better chance at winning more elections if the moderates, or more traditional members of the party had a little more influence?  Or is winning with moderates some sort of cop out?

Filed under: 2013 and beyond, Congress, Democrats, moderates, politics, Republican Party | 134 Comments »

Explanation Letter

Posted on June 14, 2012 by markinaustin

Dear Commerce Team,

This evening, I notified Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank that I am taking a medical leave of absence in order to focus on resolving my health issues that arose over the weekend.

During this time, I will not perform the functions and duties of Commerce Secretary. Therefore, I am transferring these responsibilities to Dr. Blank who will serve as Acting Secretary, effective immediately.

As you know, Dr. Blank has strengthened our Department in this role before. I have every confidence in her.

I know that all of you will work to make this a seamless transition, and I thank you in advance for your continued work to help America’s businesses drive economic growth and job creation at this crucial moment in our nation’s recovery.

Finally, I want to thank all of you personally for your warm thoughts and support.

Sincerely,

John Bryson

_________________________

Footnote: Like Rick Perry and Barack Obama, John Bryson has argued for the termination of the Cabinet post of SecCommerce.

Filed under: 2012, politics, small government | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

Bartlett on Health Care in the Financial Times

Posted on April 4, 2012 by markinaustin

Lapsed R Bruce Bartlett says government can do it better.  Hmmm.

 

America
The folly at the heart of the US healthcare debate

America is the only developed country that does not offer some form of national health insurance to all its citizens.

Those over the age of 65 have coverage through Medicare and the poor are covered through Medicaid, both established in 1965. Those who are neither poor nor old are expected to obtain their own health insurance or get a job that provides coverage. The federal government does subsidise private insurance through the tax code by allowing its cost to be excluded or deducted from taxable income. This reduces federal revenues by some $180bn per year.

In 2009, the Obama administration put forward a plan for extending health insurance to those who did not have it through an employer, those who could not afford it and those who could not obtain coverage due to a pre-existing medical condition. A complex system of subsidies was established to make coverage affordable to everyone and a mandate was put into place requiring people to get coverage or else pay a fine.

The mandate is by far the most controversial element of the Affordable Care Act. Its rationale is that insurance companies cannot be forced to cover those with pre-existing conditions without it, or else people will simply wait until they are sick before buying health insurance. Nevertheless, many Republicans view the mandate as an unconstitutional intrusion into the economy and they have brought a case before the Supreme Court to declare the legislation null and void for that reason. Court watchers believe the case could go either way, with a final decision expected just before the election in November.

Exactly what would replace the Affordable Care Act if it is found unconstitutional is a mystery. The Obama administration appears to have no back-up plan and Republicans have steadfastly refused to offer any proposal for expanding health coverage. One problem is that before Barack Obama became president, Republicans were the primary supporters of an individual mandate, viewing it is as a more market-oriented way of expanding health coverage without a completely government-run health system. Indeed, Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, established a healthcare system in Massachusetts, where he was governor, that is virtually identical to the national system created by Mr Obama.

Simultaneously, Republicans are keen to cut spending for Medicare and Medicaid, because they are among the most rapidly expanding government spending programmes. A plan supported by Republicans in the House of Representatives would effectively privatise Medicare, giving the elderly a government voucher to buy insurance or health services, in lieu of the pay-for-service system that exists now. Medicaid would be devolved to the states.

What neither party has made any effort to grapple with is the extraordinarily high cost of health, public and private. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US spends more of its gross domestic product on health than any other country by a large margin. Americans spent 17.4 per cent of gross domestic product on health in 2009 – almost half of it came from government – versus 12 per cent of GDP or less in other major economies. Britain spends 9.8 per cent of GDP on health, almost all of it through the public sector. The total government outlay is almost exactly the same in the US and the UK at 8.2 per cent of GDP. This suggests that for no more than the US government spends on health now, Americans could have universal coverage and a healthcare system no worse than the British.

However, the option of a completely government-run health system was never seriously considered in the US when the Affordable Care Act was debated in 2009. Americans are too convinced that everything government does is less efficient and costs more than if the private sector does it. The fact that this is obviously wrong in the case of healthcare has never penetrated the public consciousness.

At the moment, everyone is waiting for the Supreme Court to speak before moving forward on any serious new health reform plan. Whichever way the court rules, it is likely to give some push to further action next year regardless of the election outcome. Moreover, the growing governmental cost of Medicare and Medicaid is something that has to be addressed if there is any hope of stabilising the national finances. That alone would be an impetus for action even if the Affordable Care Act had never been enacted.

The writer is a former senior economist at the White House, US Congress and Treasury. He is author of ‘The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take’

Filed under: aca, health insurance, healthcare, politics | 29 Comments »

“…we would be wise to look upon arguments from fairness with a jaundiced eye.”

Posted on March 25, 2012 by markinaustin

From The Economist –

The politics of fairness

Fairly confusing

Feb 2nd 2012, 14:31 by W.W. | IOWA CITY

FAIRNESS played a central role in Barack Obama’s state-of-the-union address, and I suspect it will play a central role in the president’s re-election campaign. But what does Mr Obama have in mind when he deploys the f-word? It may not be the case that fairness is, as Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, puts it, “a concept invented so dumb people could participate in arguments”. But it cannot be denied that fairness is an idea both mutable and contested. Indeed, last week’s state-of-the-union address seems to contain several distinct conceptions of fairness worth drawing out and reflecting upon.

Toward the beginning of his speech, as Mr Obama was trying to draw a parallel between post-second world war America and today’s post-Iraq war America, he offered this rather stark choice:

We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.

Here we have three distinct conceptions of fairness in a single sentence.

To get a “fair shot” is to be offered the opportunity to participate fully and succeed within the country’s institutions. This is, I think, the least controversial conception of fairness in America’s political discourse. Conservatives who strenuously object to the idea that the American system should aim at “equality of outcomes” will sometimes affirm “equality of opportunity” as an alternative. But this is a mistake. To really equalise opportunity requires precisely the sort of intolerably constant, comprehensive, invasive redistribution conservatives rightly believe to be required for the equalisation of outcomes. If one is prepared to accept substantial inequalities in outcome, it follows that one is also prepared to accept substantial inequalities in opportunity.

Getting a fair shot doesn’t require equalising opportunity so much as ensuring that everyone has a good enough chance in life. The content of “good enough” is of course open to debate, but most Americans seem to agree that access to a good education is the greater part of a “good enough” and thus fair shot. Naturally, there is strong partisan disagreement over the kinds of education reform that will do right by young Americans. And there is also disagreement over elements of a “fair shot” beyond education. For example, many liberals believe workers don’t have a fair shot at achieving a decent level of economic security without robust collective-bargaining rights. And many conservatives believe that an overly-strong labour movement invites outsourcing by raising domestic costs, and thereby deprives American workers of a fair shot at employment. There may be some fact of the matter about which policies are most likely to benefit students or workers. But if one is more fair then the other, how would we know?

What is it to do one’s “fair share”? In small groups, it’s clear enough. If my friend and I are shoveling the front walk, my fair share of shoveling, and his, is about half. Often we adjust for differences in ability. If I am big and strong and my friend is small and frail, his fair share may be as much as he can manage. That won’t mean that the whole remainder is my fair share, though. If we’re going to get the walk shoveled, I may have to do a bit more than my fair share. These things get complicated quickly. That’s why the question of what it means for an American do his or her fair share, qua citizen, is completely baffling.

Suppose I’m a surgeon pulling down six figures. Perhaps doing my fair share is to pay 33% of my income in taxes. But, hey, wait! My sister, who could have been a surgeon, chose instead to make pottery in a little hippie arts colony. She makes only as much as she needs to get by, works relatively short hours, smokes a lot of weed with her artist friends, and pays no federal income tax at all! If paying 33% of the money I make saving lives is doing my fair share, then it’s hard to see how my sister—who could have been a surgeon, or some kind of job- and/or welfare-creating entrepreneur—is doing hers. But if she is doing hers, just playing with clay out there in the woods, benefiting next to no one, paying no taxes, then clearly I’m doing way more than my fair share. Which seems, you know, unfair.

Are you doing your fair share? How would one know? Actually, I just made myself feel slightly guilty for not going to med school and joining Médecins Sans Frontières. But unless government can come up with a way of taxing the leisure of people who aren’t doing as much as they might for kith and country, I reckon I’ll just stick to part-time pro blogging and let all you 9-to-5 suckers finance the necessary road-building and foreigner-bombing.

Playing by the same set of rules—the president’s third notion fairness in the passage above—is at least as important to fairness as the sufficiency of a “fair shot” and the proportionality of a “fair share”. A political economy with rules as convoluted as ours is sure to fail by the “same rules” criterion. Why should people who prefer leisure to income face lower tax rates? Why should parents and homeowners get tax breaks single renters don’t get? Why should young black men get longer sentences than young white women who commit the same crimes? Why should some industries get subsidies unavailable to others? In every case, they shouldn’t. It’s unfair. But it is this sense of fairness I think Mr Obama cares least about.

At one point in his address, Mr Obama says “[i]t’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.” I agree. It’s not. But just a few paragraphs earlier, Mr Obama had said:

[N]o American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here in America.

… [I]f you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making your products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.

So my message is simple. It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America.

On the one hand, Mr Obama argues it’s unfair when foreign government subsidise their manufacturers. On the other hand, he seems to think subsidising American manufacturing is not only not unfair in the same way, but is somehow required by fairness.

It’s this sort of confusion that tempts me to agree with Mr Adams when he argues that fairness is “purely subjective”. But I’ll resist the temptation. I don’t think judgments of fairness are entirely whimsical. It really is unfair to eat more than your share of the cake, or to do less than your share of the shoveling, or to get ahead by flouting reasonable rules to which others faithfully adhere. And it really is unfair that America wields so much geopolitical power; our government really does behave unfairly when it condemns other countries for doing what it does on the world stage. Of course, we didn’t hear the president complaining about this.

I would conclude not that judgments of fairness are purely subjective, but that the rhetoric of fairness is used so opportunistically that we would be wise to look upon arguments from fairness with a jaundiced eye.

Filed under: 2012, politics, taxes | 19 Comments »

Quick Question

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Michigoose

I’m working on my fourth (and hopefully final) post about the Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle, and I’ve run into a conundrum.  I’ve been using the term “anti-abortion” to describe the group of people that raised the ruckus over Planned Parenthood funding.  For me, that narrows their focus down to a single point: abortion.  “Pro-life” (again, for me) can encompass everything from no contraception to no death penalty, so I feel that “anti-abortion” suffices for my purposes in this argument.

But what is the converse?  It’s not anti-life, it’s not pro-abortion (for reasons lms has pointed out), help me figure out the right term.  I’d much prefer it to be “anti-something”,  just because I think that using “anti” v “pro” terms is inherently combative and argumentative.  I’d also like it to be narrowly defined: a medical procedure which is legal under US law to women up until 24 weeks after conception (a partially arbitrary date, but consistent with current viability outside the womb standards).  If you can come up with two “pro” terms that would fit the criteria for both sides I’m willing to switch to that, too.  And let’s not go into the weeds about the viability date; I’ll explain in the post when it goes up.

So what would be the best term(s) for me to use?  I’m trying to provoke discussion here, not diatribes from either side, so I want to know what would be acceptable to most.

Filed under: Komen, Planned Parenthood, politics | Tagged: | 78 Comments »

Whither Now, Komen, Part Three (Politics, Komen and Planned Parenthood)

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Michigoose

As okie mentioned in a comment on Part Two, Karen Handel resigned from Komen yesterday.

This was the statement issued at the time:

Statement from Susan G. Komen Founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker

“Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s mission is the same today as it was the day of its founding: to find a cure and eradicate breast cancer.

“We owe no less to our partners, supporters and, above all, the millions of people who have been and continue to be impacted by this life-threatening disease. We have made mistakes in how we have handled recent decisions and take full accountability for what has resulted, but we cannot take our eye off the ball when it comes to our mission. To do this effectively, we must learn from what we’ve done right, what we’ve done wrong and achieve our goal for the millions of women who rely on us. The stakes are simply too high and providing hope for a cure must drive our efforts.

“Today I accepted the resignation of Karen Handel, who has served as Senior Vice President for Policy since April 2011.  I have known Karen for many years, and we both share a common commitment to our organization’s lifelong mission, which must always remain our sole focus. I wish her the best in future endeavors.”

I hope that Nancy realizes that this is not going to quiet the firestorm, especially since Handel lashed out at dissenters in both her letter of resignation

“I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it,” Handel’s resignation letter read. “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.”

and in at least one interview she gave afterwards

Handel first denied that the decision had been in any way related to the political controversy, and was quick to blame Planned Parenthood for politicizing the debate.

“The mission was always foremost in everyone’s mind:  the mission and the women that we serve,” Handel said. “The only group that has made this issue political has been Planned Parenthood.”

But when asked later about her role in the decision, Handel appeared to admit that the group had long been under pressure from anti-abortion advocates.

“It’s no secret that Komen and other organizations that were funding Planned Parenthood had been under pressure for some years, long before my time,” Handel said, later adding, “Komen was doing its level best to move to neutral ground — and I will say, I was asked to look at options for doing that.”

But when asked whether the funding-cut push was her idea, as was contended in a Huffington Postinterview that cited internal emails, Handel sidestepped the question.

“I’m saying that this was long an issue for Komen, dealing with the controversies of Planned Parenthood,” she responded.

In addition, our Affiliate’s Executive Director wrote an opinion piece that was scheduled to be published in our local newspaper today (don’t know if it made it in yet as I haven’t seen the paper):

Susan G. Komen for the Cure found itself caught in a media storm this week. In short, a decision made by the head office regarding Planned Parenthood’s eligibility for grant funding was reversed.

Across the country, Komen affiliates felt the fallout. The Salt Lake City office received calls, Facebook posts and emails. Most expressed outrage at Komen’s move to pull funding from Planned Parenthood. When the decision was reversed, we had some angry feedback then too. Meanwhile, it was clear that many of the comments came from people who had little or no idea of what we do, who we are, or how we spend our money. So let me take the opportunity to clarify what Komen represents here in Utah.

First, we are small. We have two full-time and one part-time paid staff. But, with a corps of passionate volunteers, we raise a lot of money, thanks mainly to the 16,000 or more people who join us every year in the Komen Salt Lake City Race for the Cure.

Second, 75 percent of our net funds stay in our local community. We granted $735,000 in 2011 to Utah nonprofits. We fund mammograms performed by Intermountain Healthcare for the uninsured or underinsured. And we support breast health education and other programs, like a van service organized by a small group in Price to ensure that women can travel safely (and free of charge) to Provo for mammography, chemo, or radiation. Our grantees are listed on our local web site, www.komenslc.org. They also include groups that serve minority populations. One of our goals is to increase the mammography rate. Utah ranks second to lowest in the entire nation for screening. We want to change that ranking.

Third, 25 percent of our funds go to Komen headquarters–not for overhead, but for research projects selected at the national level to avoid duplication and ensure impact. Frequently, the funds that we send to Komen HQ for research come back to Utah. For example, Huntsman Cancer Institute is currently working on a project to learn how to isolate breast tumors and prevent them from spreading because that’s when cancer may lead to death. This research is occurring thanks to a $180,000 Komen national grant.

Many women are alive today because of Komen funding. Twenty five years ago, the five-year survival rate for a woman diagnosed with breast cancer (when detected early) was 75 percent. Now it’s 98 percent. Progress is being made. That said, breast cancer remains a serious, life-threatening disease that affects one in eight women.

Regarding Planned Parenthood: Have we given them money in the past? Yes. Will we continue to do so? Yes, if their request is related to breast health, and if our independent panel of reviewers decide that their proposal is a priority, given other requests and funds available. Some may still feel that the very fact that we provide funds of any kind to Planned Parenthood constitutes tacit endorsement of their organization. It is not an endorsement of any kind. It is simply a response to a need in this community for breast health information or services.

In summary, the REAL Komen, the Komen that I know, respect and support, is the Komen in your backyard.

We continue to hope for a great turnout at the Race for the Cure this year as fellow Utahns show their trust and belief in us, and join us in the war against breast cancer.

Debbie Mintowt, Executive Director, Salt Lake City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure

Over the weekend I heard from our Board’s President that all of the Affiliates that were on that particular conference call with Nancy Brinker and HQ staff flat-out stated that Karen Handel had to go, and at that time Nancy didn’t want to do that. . . so something happened between Saturday and yesterday.  Sooner or later I imagine I’ll hear what it was.  Although I have always known that she is a Republican and a conservative Christian religiously conservative woman,  up until now Nancy Brinker kept politics out of the Komen brand.  I don’t think that we’ll ever shove that genie back in to bottle, so from here on out we’re going to have to be hypervigilant about sponsors, grantees, honorary chairs–everything that is the public face of Komen, and that’s a shame, because both Komen and Planned Parenthood do good work.

Part four is in the works: women’s health, Planned Parenthood, and Komen.  I see that part two is up around 180 comments now.  If nothing else, I seem to be able to write posts that spark a lot of discussion.

 

EDIT:  Both Mark and Karla pointed out that Nancy Brinker is possibly Jewish rather than Christian; I don’t know why I’d always been led to believe that she’s Christian, but after looking into it I can’t find a citation one way or the other, so I edited it above.  I know from meeting her at Komen events and public information that she is a conservative and religious woman (who I admire greatly), so I’ve decided to go with those two descriptors.

Filed under: Komen, Planned Parenthood, politics | Tagged: | 56 Comments »

Whither Now, Komen, Part Two

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Michigoose

All politics are local, although if you’re a giant fundraising charity they’re also national and, in Komen’s case, even global (we have Affiliates in Germany and Italy [Komen also counts our Puerto Rico Affiliate as an “international” one, although they do have US passports there. . . just sayin’] and Races in The Bahamas, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Egypt, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Israel and Tanzania).  As I stated in Part One, Komen started as a volunteer-driven, grass-roots fundraising effort that has mushroomed into a huge effort in which the fundraising and granting is still done at the local level using guidelines and marketing developed at the central headquarters.  So local politics has long been the deciding factor in some of our granting and the sponsorships that we seek for our events.  I was mistaken Tuesday evening when I said that the SLC Affiliate hasn’t given grants to Planned Parenthood in the past—for three or four years we granted them Komen credits to purchase educational materials from the Komen store, a win-win since it got the materials out there at essentially no cost to the grantees (PP wasn’t the only one who got grants that way) with the Komen branding on them.  We didn’t give them a grant last year and they didn’t apply for one in the current funding year.  We (those of us who had been thrust into the limelight through our association with Komen this last week) got a crash course on our grant funding history Wednesday evening.

    Local politics as seen through the eyes of the Race Director for the Komen SLC Race for the Cure:

The very first thing that I noticed when I came on board as Assistant Race Director in 2000 was that there was virtually no involvement in the Race by the LDS Church, either participatory, volunteering, or contribution-wise.  Why?  That particular question has never been answered, although my suspicion is that it was a combination of things: 1) Any discussion of body parts associated with sexuality in any way, shape, or form is still strongly frowned upon.  I’ve met LDS medical students—both male and female—who literally couldn’t say the words “breast”, “vagina”, or “penis”.  And the dissection of the clitoris in the anatomy lab?  Wouldn’t happen unless there were non-LDS students working at that table.  To the best of my knowledge they all overcame their block about those things, but it is far more ingrained than I would have imagined if I hadn’t taught anatomy.  2) The LDS Church itself takes up huge chunks of its members’ time already; in addition to church on Sunday, Monday is Family Home Evening (just what it sounds like—an evening set aside solely for family activities), adults have Church callings to attend to, which can be anything and everything from being a Home Teacher (going into other members’ homes and teaching them doctrine and such) to being the Ward bishop or Stake (group of wards) president, to Boy Scout troops—the list is endless.  3) As is typical, our Race Committee and Affiliate Board is heavily dominated by women and we aren’t Church members.  Participation on all levels has gotten much better over the years (or my Race wouldn’t be up to 18,000 participants and over 600 volunteers on Race day alone), so I guess we’re gaining acceptance but that is the religious side to the local politics.

Then there is the politics of sponsorship on the local level.  Ford is, and has been, one of our National sponsors for as long as I’ve been involved with the Race, but the second thing I noticed early on was that we never got our Ford vehicles from the largest dealership in the state (Larry H. Miller) but, rather always from one of the smaller ones—why?  Especially since Larry Miller also owned the Jazz, and if he’d provided us with vehicles he would have been able to advertise that fact during their home games.  The I-kid-you-not answer?  See reason number 1 above.  After Larry passed away and his son took over the business we got our Fords from him that year.  Over the years our local sponsors have largely been businesses that either don’t have to depend on the Church for business success—and that we won’t offend large segments of the population if we partner with them—or that are actually owned by the Church and seen by it as a wise investment (canny business people, those Mormons!).  For instance, our media sponsor the last few years has been the TV station and newspaper that is owned by the Church.  In the same vein as sponsorship, as far as I’m concerned as Race Director, is the role of Honorary Chair (I’m lucky in that, as RD, I don’t have to worry about recruiting/retaining sponsors or Honorary Chairs—that is way higher than my pay grade)(I would be abysmal at that side of things, also).  We never had an actual politician as our Honorary Chair, although we’d approached many over the years, until the Democratic mayor of Salt Lake County agreed to do it in 2011 (non-election year and he’s term-limited, anyway).  Komen is seen here as quite dangerous and Leftie (all those women in charge of something can’t be good) so the Republicans won’t touch us with a ten-foot pole; I had my hopes when Huntsman was Governor, especially after he won re-election, but even he wouldn’t do it.

Which leads to the politics of perception and influence, and this is where the local becomes national, and the national local.  Komen is The Big Time.  I was moved from Assistant Race Director to Race Director in 2001 when our Affiliate was officially formed and the woman who had founded the SLC Race for the Cure became our first Board President; I didn’t have a clue what I was walking in to.  Salt Lake isn’t a terribly big place, when it comes right down to it, and Lisa—by starting the Race and then being its RD for five years—knew everybody.  Luckily, she was very, very good at doing what she did and she is far more politically astute than I am, so I had a solid foundation to build on; but I was shocked the first time I walked into a City Events meeting and said “Hi, I’m Michigoose, I’m the new Race Director for the Race for the Cure,” and everybody dropped what they were doing and focused on me.  As it happens, this (organizing and executing an event like this) is something that I am also very good at (thank you, US Army training) and I’ve been able to continue Lisa’s good work, but I was still fairly shocked again this year when—after telling the police at a meeting in November that my goal is to double the Race to 40,000 people by 2015—I’ve been able to sit down with the Fire Department Chief, a City Councilman, and the Mayor’s office in the past three months and have each of them ask me what they can do to help me.  Now, this is another win-win (if I can grow the Race to 40K participants that’s a lot of tourist dollars that will be coming in to the City), but I’m beginning to understand the political tightrope that charitable organizations walk when they become big enough to be influential.

I think that’s what Komen HQ forgot when they stepped into the minefield.  Because they are big and influential they’ve been acting unilaterally on a lot of things for a long time now without quite realizing the enemies they’d been making.  Several people, both here and in the “real” world have pointed out to me that anti-abortion groups have been threatening to protest at Races and withhold funds for a long time, but the plain fact of the matter is that those threats are largely toothless to Komen.  Protesting at a charitable Race?  That would be like, well, protesting at a funeral of a veteran and we’ve seen how much good that’s done the Westboro Church.  I’m not saying it hasn’t happened (I don’t know if it has or not, but none of the RDs that I talked to this week have ever seen it), but I don’t think it would further an anti-abortion group’s cause much to protest at a Komen event—although that may have changed now.  And the dollars that those groups would be able to raise are a mere drop in the bucket compared to what breast cancer survivors themselves are able to raise—our top fund raiser for at least the last two years is a woman who singlehandedly pulls in around $10,000 in donations for us on Race day through her support network.  And therein lies the rub, and why by letting themselves be yanked into the political arena Komen may have shot themselves in the foot.

Breast cancer is bigger than Komen, but Komen has tried to control the entire playing field.  They tried to trademark the pink ribbon, but as it turns out you can’t trademark a color (but they did trademark the new shape of the ribbon they use—so don’t try to use a running ribbon to raise money, even if it’s for breast cancer research!).  They sue everybody and anybody who uses the phrase “for the Cure”, but they play both sides of the coin by taking any and all funds raised at events using that phrase whenever offered.  They have basically acted like a bully (we’re talking purely about the national, HQ-level stuff here now); I can’t allow other Race Directors to hand out flyers for their races at my event—even if they’re charitable events that have nothing whatsoever to do with breast cancer—nor can I allow local vendors who haven’t paid enough money to become sponsors to hand out food, water, buttons, pink ribbons etc., etc., etc..  That has created an enormous amount of ill-will on the local level, although most folks are resigned to it when I explain the situation to them, and it opened the door a crack for Komen supporters to think that there may be other places to donate their money that will support the same cause without being so heavy-handed.

And then came this week’s debacle.  I know that Nancy Brinker is a Republican.  I know that Karen Handel is a Republican.  For many, many reasons Komen HQ is in Dallas, TX, and many (if not most) of the HQ staff are conservative Texas Christians (for the record, the wonderful woman who is our Affiliate’s contact person at HQ is as Leftie as lms and as graciously Southern as okie, so Komen is an Equal Opportunity Employer)(I only know that because she came to town to visit in December and she and I had a fantastic dinner together; I’ve always liked all of our Affiliate Representatives and have never before known any of their political leanings, but they’re small fish), and they’re living and working in a state where Planned Parenthood has long been under fire.   Mark sent me this link earlier, and it’s a sad and sobering story that gave me a lot of context for what happened in the last few days.  Why did they allow themselves to get sucked into politics, and abortion politics at that? I think it was a combination of a woman who has a great vision, but allowed herself to be caught up in the enormity of what she’s built (she’s been named a Goodwill Ambassador by President Obama, for heaven’s sake!), another woman with an agenda (Karen Handel) who was in the right place at the right time to implement it, and a surrounding political environment that is extraordinarily anti-Planned Parenthood.

So what are the politics going forward?  Darn good question; I’ve read opinions from the Right, center, and Left and none of them are very optimistic.  That last one is by a bioethicist, and I think his second paragraph sums it up well:

By even raising the possibility that they would pull the plug on the hundreds of thousands of dollars they give to Planned Parenthood to support breast cancer detection, they have lost the single-minded focus on finding a cure for a horrid disease that allowed them to become a charity giant envied by every other disease advocacy organization in the world. (Emphasis mine)

So I’m left with the fact that I’m very grateful that my Race isn’t until May, because by that time I’m hoping much of this will have blown over—I’ve already had to ensure all of those Powers That Be (Mayor’s office, City Council, Police and Fire Departments) that we aren’t, and never will be, a political advocacy event.  Thank heavens for prior relationships with them that were solid and trustworthy.  But this absolutely guarantees that I won’t be able to get any Republican support in the near future, because their ten-foot pole just became a one hundred-foot one thanks to the blunders in Dallas.  And I’m also right at the beginning of volunteer recruitment for folks to do the heavy lifting on Race day (yeah, those 600+ people who show up to help me out), and I’m positive that I’ve just been issued an enormous roadblock to that.  We haven’t lost any sponsors (yet) and, in fact, picked up a major one yesterday so I’m hoping that—just like with the Powers—our prior good record on the local level will overcome the national fallout.  That’s the political reality at the local level.

Next: Politics, Komen, and Planned Parenthood (and where I open the door to the dragon’s lair)

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Question of the night: Is the personal political?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Fairlington Blade

Hi all,

We’re about an hour from debate time and I wanted to expand upon something that came up in an earlier debate. Rick Perry voiced what I thought was a dangerous line of attack on Newt. Here’s the quote: “If you cheat on your wife, you’ll cheat on your business partner, so I think that issue of fidelity is important.” It’s an interesting challenge and one worth expanding upon.

Let’s take fiscal conservatives as an example. I consider myself a fiscal conservative in both the personal and political senses of the world. We bought our house in 2005, when the real estate world seemed to have gone mad. People were getting all kinds of crazy mortgages, which really pissed me off as it meant I couldn’t afford the kind of home I hoped to have. We held to a firm rule. 10% down. 15 year fixed mortgage. It would mean sacrifices, but it made fiscal sense. I’m glad we were careful as despite our care, we had financial troubles. The place needed a good deal more work than anticipated and so we blew through our savings, I took out a $15k improvement loan, and we were still running a bit short. [I’m fiscally conservative, but also make mistakes.] We bore down, built up some minimal savings, and paid off that loan 7 years early. We’re working to pay off my wife’s student loans next year (way early after having consolidated), and I want to pay off the mortgage by the time the boys exit elementary school (that’d be about 3 – 4 years early). I don’t want to be in a position of needing a paycheck ever again. I’ll note that I’m lucky in that I’ve had a relatively secure position during the last 4 years and my wife’s freelancing has taken off.

I’m also a fiscal conservative in the political sense. For me, being a fiscal conservative means that expenditures should match income. Cutting taxes without cutting expenditures is the act of a fiscal fool. So is increasing expenditures without increasing taxes. So, Medicare Part D was reckless. Expanding Medicare to include a drug benefit? Great idea! Doing it without touching FICA rates. Terrible idea¡ If you want federal taxes to be limited to 20% of GDP, fine. Then propose a budget that meets that.

Now, shocks occur. I am horrified by the present fiscal situation, but it beats a second great depression. It flips my personal stance (short term pain for long term gain). Ironically, the opposite seems to be the case. Short term deficits and long term cuts. The alternative is Greece (or the UK, which slipped back into recession).

That’s a somewhat lengthy example. Let’s bring it to politicians. Example A would be Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Illinois). Owes child support, a condo foreclosure, and tax liens. How can anyone take such an individual seriously? I’ll also put Charlie Rangel in the same class. For all his tap dancing, the attacks on Al Gore for his mansion hit home.

I’m curious as to other analogues. Do apparent contradictions between a politician’s personal behavior and their political positions matter to you? Are there any cases of where your vote has been affected by a politician’s personal actions?

And most important of all. Would you like to grope Sen. Rand Paul? 😉

BB

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