Peterr

Komen for the Cure says that there’s nothing personal about cutting off funds to Planned Parenthood. It’s just business, you know, and since they’re under investigation, we can’t get caught up in that.

That’s funny, because I’ve been reading of investigations — and even admissions — of financial irregularities in several dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church. Given that Komen sends grant money to Catholic institutions like Georgetown University, it makes me wonder if GU will be losing their money next.

Unless GU and other Catholic institutions are losing their funds too, this “it’s just our policy” line is Komen blowing smoke, and that makes me sick.

Charlie Savage has a great piece on the mess that is the DOD’s investigation and trial of those charged with the 2005 massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha. Sadly, as Savage points out, the lack of justice in this case is part of a disturbing pattern in the military, where all too often, PR trumps justice.

It’s not new. The Pat Tillman case was the same way, as PR concerns shoved the truth aside. Another example of the ongoing “PR trumps justice” movement in the military is on view at the Sundance film festival with “The Invisible War,” a film that describes itself as “a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of our country’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our US military.”

Within the military, it seems PR trumps justice, all too often. Our military, and our nation, deserve better.

I was struck by the way in which President Obama’s State of the Union speech was structured, with each issue laid out inthe same pattern: start with the conservative talking point, then move to the progressive positionas though the progressive-leaning positions were being given the rhetorical back seat. Only when the speech spoke of unity of worthwhile purposes did it capture what makes a nation great.

Newt Gingrich’s contract with Freddie Mac is out, and when you boil it all down, his job description boils down to “. . . whatever duties as may be assigned.”

Kind of makes you wonder what those might have been. I’m sure the folks around here will have a few good ideas about what Newt might have done that would have been worth $25,000 a month.

The joy in some quarters over the Obama decision to deny the permit to TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline to carry tarsands oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. I’m glad for the decision, but it was hardly a ringing endorsement of either concerns about potential damage caused by spills from the pipeline or concerns about what tapping into the tar sands will do to the climate. Rather, it was political posturing for effect by DC politicians on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The GOP forced a rider into must-pass legislation saying “You’ve got 60 days to approve or deny” and State said — back then — that with that kind of a time limit, they’d have no choice but to deny. And this week, they did just that.

As Bill McKibben says, “We’ve won no permanent victory (environmentalists never do) but we have shown that spirited people can bring science back to the fore.”

Come Tuesday, Bill will be taking a group of spirited people to Capital Hill, to take the fight to the science-deniers who live off the money from Big Oil. It should be quite something.

James Dobson’s slam on Newt Gingrich at the recent behind-closed-doors meeting of evangelical Christian leaders grabbed a lot of attention in the press, but no one seems to remember that these two have a past. In 2007, Gingrich went on Dobson’s radio program to confess his history of marital infidelity, and received the blessing of numerous TheoCon leaders for doing so.

Now, though, Dobson appears to have led the charge against Gingrich in that meeting of religious conservatives. Is Dobson repenting for having given Gingrich a platform to try to rebuild in image back in 2007?

Ah, the confusion that reigns when folks talk about church and state . . . SCOTUS rules in favor of religious freedom on one day, and the next day — the very next day! — religious conservatives come out screaming about the threat to religious freedom.

No one could have anticipated . . .

Mitt Romney has a big problem ahead, as he is faced with headlines that feature words like bankruptcy and layoffs. The Bain business model, as Paul Krugman noted, enriched Romney and his cronies at Bain at the expense of ordinary workers at the companies they bought.

Reuters paints this picture vividly, as they tell the story of a Kansas City steel mill that Bain purchased, looted, and led into bankruptcy. Even more devastating is the reaction of at least one conservative former Armco worker, who is featured in a new anti-Romney ad put together by Moveon.org. “They [Bain] walked out of here with millions. They left us with nothing.”

Way to reach out to the conservative base, Mitt.

On Wednesday, Boeing dropped a bombshell on the state of Kansas, announcing that they were closing their plant in Wichita, sending ripples throughout the region.

What makes this plant closure announcement different from others, however, is that in the battle to win back the military tanker contract, Boeing’s CEO promised Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, then-Senator (and now governor) Sam Brownback, and other members of the Kansas Congressional delegation that Boeing would build the tanker in Wichita if the Kansas delegation could prevail on their colleagues to award them the contract.

Roberts and the rest of the GOP is not pleased that after winning the contract, Boeing decided to build elsewhere and close the plant.

Imagine that. A corporation would deceive members of Congress when it suits them. Awwwww . . .

As 2011 comes to a close, millions continue to be without a job, and far too many haven’t had a job for at least half of the year.

To the MOTUs, these are statistics; to me, they are the people I see almost every day. They are my neighbors, my parishioners, and my friends. For them, my new year’s wish is that they find the jobs they so desperately seek. For the MOTUs, my new year’s wish is that they pay the taxes to fund the safety net my neighbors, parishioners, and friends so desperately need.