Friendly Fire

On Birth Control: Did Obama Walk it Back to Chaos?

2012-02-11T06:59:37Z

Well, Obama did indeed walk it back when he put birth control services at half an arm's length from Catholic institutions. The mystery was why the White House committed this unforced error in the first place. The political problem with such a hot button issue was obvious--as was the fix. As I wrote earlier, "good medicine but bad politics."

However, the issue of religious exemptions from paying for programs that run counter to the core beliefs of their faiths is interesting. Should Christian Science churches and reading rooms not be required to provide health insurance for their workers--adherents of the faith or simply employees? Should Jehovah's Witnesses be compelled to provide health insurance that covers transfusions, which are anathema to their religion?

In our complex and heterodox society, could Quakers refuse to pay taxes because some money will go to war and killing? Can I, on a religious basis, demand that none of my tax dollars go to pay for bombs or biochemical weapons? Why, after all, should only Catholics get to opt out of selected medical services? The existence of a religious exemption creates a slippery slope indeed.
©2012 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Mayor Villaraigosa's Deafening Silence on Redistricting

2012-02-10T06:49:03Z

The outcry about the proposed redistricting proposals has been long and loud. The charges are by now well known. The plan will rip whole chunks of neighborhoods out of one district and ill fitted crazy quilt style into wildly disparate districts. The two districts that have been most often cited to prove the point are Councilwoman Jan Perry's 9th District and councilman Bernard Parks' s 8th district. Both are among the poorest, almost exclusively minority, and were the epicenter of the 1992 L.A. riots. Take Perry's first. Under the plan she'll lose downtown to 14th District City Councilman Jose Huizar and she'll be left with a district that if not for the Downtown section would have the city's highest unemployment rate, and the greatest dearth of upscale manufacturing and upscale businesses.
Perry has worked hard to change that and part of that effort has been to leverage the financially booming Downtown as a fulcrum for gaining resources and drawing major business and redevelopment dollars to the impoverished part of her 9th District. Perry protests that losing Downtown will put a severe crimp in her efforts, and she has not shirked from making that known.
Parks has been even more vociferous in opposing much of the current redistricting proposals plan. They would in an odd quirk create an opposite dilemma for him. The plan grafts on part of the more upscale, largely white, Westchester section to his mostly minority 8th District. Parks has held nonstop outspoken hearings where parades of residents have marched to the microphones to denounce the proposed shifts. Nothing of course, has been finalized yet. The proposals are still in the talking, negotiating and shouting stage. And while a litany of city officials and residents, and businesspersons have weighed in on the district's reshuffling, one voice has been strangely mute. That's Mayor Villaraigosa. Redistricting is the hard purview of the city council to approve. A redistricting panel is convened by city officials every 10 years to adjust council district boundaries to reflect changes in population and ethnic makeup.
Part of that process is designed to ensure that Latinos, African Americans and other groups denied representation in the past have adequate opportunity to win office, as required under the federal Voting Rights Act.
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But Villaraigosa ultimately has to sign off on the final proposal. And he has much power over its final shape since he put three of the members on the 21 members Redistricting Commission including the Commission's chair Arturo Vargas who is the Executive Director of the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).
So what does he think about the changes. He hasn't said a word. One answer is that he simply prefers to let the process play out and see what's finally approved. Another answer is that since the mayor has deep ties with those on the Council and the Commission that are charged with redrawing the lines, his hidden hand is at work in making the objected to changes. Either answer is plausible and valid.
The problem for Villaraigosa is that when the lines are finally settled on and they remake districts that are poor, even poorer, and give its residents even less political clout at City Hall, and you have residents in other districts equally ticked off about being shuttled into foreign territory districts, Villaraigosa will get an earful from all sides. He'll be hit with the charge of playing politics, favoritism, cronyism, and again turning a deaf ear to the loud pleas from city residents for fairness.
Villaraigosa will be out of office in another year. His legacy is already being written as a mayor who was either an abject failure or did the best job he could given the crisis problems that he had to deal with. Villaraigosa's stone silence on the redistricting imbroglio won't do much to make residents think that his contributions belong on the plus side of his legacy ledger.

Catholics, Birth Control & Obama

2012-02-09T16:04:02Z

The current hot and heating up controversy over mandating Catholic institutions to provide birth control services as part of the insurance packages they offer students and employees is not going away. It touches many buttons and, though I hate to admit this, both sides have valid concerns.

Women who work for Catholic hospitals, schools or other religious institutions should, in theory, have the same benefits as women who work for secular or non-Roman Catholic institutions. The individual, whether Catholic or not, should be able to choose to use birth control or have access to the "Morning After" pill. Clearly they should not be compelled to use the services.

The question is if the institutions should be compelled to offer products and services directly forbidden by their core teaching and explicit values? There are some technical issues about exempt employees and non-exempt, meaning there is a reasonable demand for ordained and other religious professionals to be exempt from having birth control services provided. But for the Jewish MD, the Episcopalian accountant, the Lutheran nurses not to be covered seems wrong. There should not be a penalty for working in lay positions at religious institutions.

And yet, I am a little uncomfortable with this. Even if Catholics avail themselves of birth control in roughly the same percentage as everyone else, our religious institutions can feel a legitimate duty to exemplify their highest aspirations--if not their actual practices. The idea of compelling a faith to break faith with its traditions is troubling.

Were the Feds to tell my university (American Jewish University) that we must provide pork as a cost for accepting federal aid, scholarships or other benefits, I might march against such an intrusive edict--even if I personally ate pork.

Hard to imagine such circumstances? Well, take another road in. Let's say that there is a Taco Truck across the street from the university that serves carnitas (and there is). Now let's say that we have several employees (exempt, not rabbis or designated "religious") who are handicapped and can't easily get to the street and cross Mulholland on crutches or in a wheelchair. Could someone come up with a theory of being out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act? Could the government demand we either convey them to the pork or bring the truck on campus? I'll bet I could find a lawyer or a bureaucrat who'd pursue this.

Yes, this is a slippery slope in all directions. And it should have been avoided by setting up freestanding reproductive services insurance outside the religious institutions. Obama will almost certainly have to do a partial walk-back on this and find a way to make this work without getting even non-practicing Catholics alienated. They are, after all, the quintessential swing voters.
©2012 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Just Say No to Paying for this Birth Control

2012-02-09T15:28:47Z

Obama has done and gone too far and stepped on more than a few religious toes. I don't know whose constitution he's been reading, but in the good, old U S of A it is unconstitutional for the administration to require privately funded religious organization to pay for their female employee's birth control and contraceptives.

Even some Democrats are incensed over this recent turn that Obamacare has taken except Senator Barbara Boxer who said that "it's medicine and women deserve their medicine."

Now, we all know that Senator Boxer is also not a doctor, so maybe she thinks that birth control is in the same category as aspirin, antibiotics and other life-saving medication, but birth control does not constitute a medical emergency, except for the mothers of criminals and the like who should be have been paid to use it. Otherwise, it is in the category all its own.

Besides, our Constitution calls for the separation of church and state and forcing Catholic-run organizations to pay for their female employees violates that clause. Though it always appeared odd to me that the moral majority and religious right, comprised mostly of men and women well past their child-bearing years should tell others to carry, have and raise babies. If they are so hepped up on the idea of peopling the planet, they should try it themselves.

They're Just Not That Into You, Mitt

2012-02-08T06:43:44Z

Mitt achieves the trifecta and losses three times in one day

Well Mitt you are doing better than last time. In 2008 you withdrew in mid February having outspent every other candidate and garnered a whopping 12.5% of the delegates to McCain's 72%. They didn't love you or trust you then, and they're still not that into you.

I know it must be frustrating because you are clearly intelligent. You are fairly articulate--most of the time. However, when you do go off message, it is usually, as Cheney used to say, "Big Time!" You look like an American president. Your portrait is ready. In fact you might look more like an American President than Michael Douglas did in the film of the same name.

What do you lack? What can't your money and coaches, your great desire and willingness to go almost laughably negative, buy? In a word it is: Authenticity. If George W beat Gore (for me and my ilk that is actually a real question, but enough bitterness) it was because the people sensed that W was real and that Gore needed focus groups to tell him what to say and even how to dress.

We get that same sense of not knowing you because we're not so sure that you know you. (If you know what I mean. Probably not.) You have been a liberal, pro-choice, pro gay rights guy. Now you're not, or so you say. Sure you can grow and change positions, but too many of your changes seem to be a bit too convenient. You have put yourself in the unenviable position of having betrayed liberals and not convinced conservatives. You've taken more positions than Newt in the back seat with an intern. Your best hope is to be everyone's third choice. Yes, I know it must feel humiliating.

I mean Santorum cleaned your expensive clock in both Minnesota and Missouri, eked out a win in Iowa and beat you convincingly in Colorado. What a disappointment. No, really, what a rebuke to your candidacy. You may still win the nomination. Santorum seems too slight. Ron Paul is not really running but only messaging, and Newt is just too mean. But whether you are playing liberal or conservative, being mister nice guy or the implausible Brylcreem mean machine, there is something genuinely phony in how you come across.
©2012 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

LAUSD Meets Komen, Karzai & Hamas

2012-02-08T01:28:16Z

Some days the news is just too big to fit in a single well-focused 800-word article. Today is one of those days. So, let me just set out the menu of the current events that, as Walter Cronkite used to say, alter and illuminate our lives.

Locally, we have L.A. Unified's traditional mishandling of nearly every aspect of the Miramonte Molestation crisis. Without warning, involving or consulting the parents, they carried out an investigation, got two teachers removed and decided to destroy any continuity for the children by disappearing the entire faculty and staff and putting in a new team from principal to janitors. Unless they have evidence of a massive cover up and conspiracy, this is a horror of crisis management and a rejection of transparency, parental involvement and care for the kids. It stinks of lawyer-driven butt covering.

Statewide, we have the 9th Circuit Appellate Court's ruling that the anti-same-sex marriage Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. Their finding is based on equal protection and that there is no obvious social purpose in singling out a specific class of citizens for unequal access to the benefits of marriage. They further held that since civil unions were already valid under the law, the selecting out of marriage advanced no useful social purpose. While this will certainly be appealed--either to the whole court meeting en banc, or to the Supreme Court, it does bespeak an evolution in public awareness and acceptance of gay and lesbian people--their rights and sensibilities.

Nationwide the big story is certainly the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and their truly remarkable mishandling of their self-made crisis. Years from now people will be using Komen's crisis mismanagement as a case study for how to ruin your own brand. As a private group, they had every right not to fund Planned Parenthood. They could have quietly chosen not to fund future grants. But by cutting off current funding under the specious argument that they were compelled to by a newly created by-law wrecked their credibility. Their assertion that hiring Karen Handel, an anti-choice Republican and former candidate for Governor of Georgia, played no role in this policy change was further damaging to their already rapidly diminishing credibility. They created the worst of all possible words. Now pro-choice people are suspicious of them for having seemingly thrown women under the bus of conservative politics and conservatives are furious that Komen seemed to admit to having funded an abortion provider--even though the actual moneys went to cancer screening.

Meanwhile, on the world stage, a charade is being played out by nearly everyone regarding Syria. We are shocked, shocked that Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for Assad to step down and have his second in command form a unity government with the Sunni Muslims. Our anger and sense of betrayal is an act. A Security Council resolution, even if passed, would not have changed the inherent facts of the conflict. Yes, the Arab League has handed off the issue because they couldn't do anything. But the Arab League is vastly majority Sunni with no sympathy for the plight of the Alawite Muslims or the Christian minority should Assad and the Alawites fall. They also line up against the Shiites of Iran. Given all this, to mistake a UN resolution for meaningful action is naïve. Assad, as bad as he is--and that is plenty bad--cannot step down or hand off to another Alawite. His fall would mean (will mean, because it is inevitable) the persecution of his people, tribe and all non-Sunnis. There is a civil war and the slaughter will continue. I'm not at all supporting Assad, but we do need to understand that this is another sectarian conflict which will proceed with bloodshed and in which we do not have a useful role. The world could land 50,000 or 500,000 troops and we would not know whom to protect and whom to shoot. However, landing soldiers was not on the UN agenda. It was only about condemning Assad. Condemnation will not move him to commit political suicide or actual suicide and potentially allow the extermination of his people.

Also, in the endless drama of the Middle East, the Palestinian Authority has once again declared unity with Hamas. And once again Israel objects to the PA unifying with a declared terrorist organization. Netanyahu cannot negotiate with the PA because they don't represent all the Palestinians. And Netanyahu cannot negotiate with them when they do represent all the Palestinians. Again, appearances are deceptive. The truce and unity between Hamas and the PA are not real. But even if they were, they could not deliver their radical adherents to be a part of a meaningful peace process. Without stipulating to the existence of Israel as a Jewish State, there are no serious issues to discuss, and both sides know that this is public posturing for political purposes.

Finally, we seem to be admitting that the surge in Afghanistan has failed, and tripling our boots on the ground did nothing to concentrate Karzai's mind, nor did it tame the Taliban. We are leaving, and Afghanistan will break down into warring factions once again. Yes, the Taliban will be back. No one should take any pleasure in our failure, but we should have learned from history--from Alexander to once-Great Britain to the Soviet Union, no one has unified or pacified Afghanistan--except to unify them against foreigners.

Oh yeah, the great reality show of the year, the mash-up of Survivor and American Idol, otherwise known as the Republican primary, is still playing to the amusement of all pundits and comedians, the glee of all Democrats and the horror of the Republican establishment.

All in all a normal day on planet earth.
©2012 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

GOP Gave Obama No Choice but to Go After the Fat Cats

2012-02-08T01:25:56Z

President Obama's reversal on his decision to keep hands off the fundraising efforts of his campaign aligned super PACS raised a few eyebrows among campaign finance reform advocates. This seemed like a betrayal of Obama's oft stated position that the relentless chase and dependence on fat cat donors to bankroll campaigns has gone way off the deep-end. In 2008, Obama's said that he'd raise the bulk of his campaign funds from almost literally the nickels and dimes of small donors. That he would not take a penny from lobbyist groups and that he would back an overhaul of the campaign financing rules.
Obama's sharp attack on the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision that virtually gave free license to corporations to dump money directly into partisan campaigns was cheered by campaign reform advocates. This renewed hope and the expectation that Obama would push Democrats to enact proposed legislation to blunt the court's decision and restore checks on corporation's and the financial industry's power to sway elections. So far that legislation has gotten nowhere in Congress. But Obama's reversal on Super PACs is not a betrayal of principle. It a reflection of the brutal reality that to run and keep the White House it will cost a pretty penny. There were two glaring things that again drove that brutal reality home to the White House.
The GOP has rebounded from its anemic fund raising takes in 2008 and has drawn almost dead even with the Democrats in fundraising. A huge chunk of the money is coming from its corporate dominated Super PACS. The other thing is Mitt Romney. He will likely be the GOP presidential nominee and is every bit the cash fundraising cow that Obama is. According to recent reports, nearly 60 corporations and individuals dumped more than $100,000 on a super PAC backing Romney. Typical of the hard money pouring in is Bain Capital, Romney's old outfit. According to the Center for Public Integrity, current and former Bain executives and their relatives have shoved nearly $5 million to organizations that back Romney's presidential bid.

He's also banked tens of thousands of dollars from Walmart's Walton family members, and Koch family members. The heavy duty cash has poured in just to help Romney get the GOP nomination. It takes little imagination to figure that once he bags the nomination the corporate and financial industry donors will radically up the ante for him.
The ideal is to make public financing the rule and the law for federal elections. In a perfect world, that would be the case and big money would not obscenely skew the election process toward those who can essentially pay the most for it. But the Supreme Court decision effectively killed that ideal. This insured that Obama, nor any other presidential candidate, can be competitive in a hard fought primary and even harder fought general election campaign without the tens of millions that lobbyists, PACs, corporations, Wall Street, and labor unions shove into a presidential candidate's campaign coffers. The 2008 presidential primary and general election was the ultimate proof. Hillary Clinton was the near consensus early odds on favorite to bag the Democratic nomination. Her failure had nothing to do with campaign bumbles, policy stumbles, or voter rejection. She simply ran out of money to be competitive with Obama in the smaller state primaries. That enabled Obama to rack up what ultimately proved to be an insurmountable delegate lead. It was the same in the general election. Obama had a bulging campaign chest. Republican presidential foe, John McCain didn't. It was the financial head of stem that Obama had built up coming out of the primary battle with Clinton that made the difference for Obama in being able to saturate the airwaves with his campaign pledges and assaults on McCain. None of this came cheap.
The 2012 campaign will not be a rerun of 2008. Romney with his cash raising prowess from his solid corporate and financial industry ties has an advantage that McCain didn't. But that's not all, Romney will continue to try and turn the tables and pound Obama on his alleged financial and economic failures. He will ask the question Reagan asked Carter during their 1980 presidential debate "are you better off than you were four years ago." The question worked again when Obama asked it about the GOP in 2008. But it costs money and lots of it to message the administration's accomplishments on this pivotal issue, and to ultimately convince voters that the answer is yes. The GOP gave Obama no choice but to directly go after the fat cat donors to effectively get his message across and make the case for a second term. Romney will have just as much money to try and make the opposite case.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst and Monday co-host of the Al Sharpton Show. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Where are Romney's Blacks?

2012-02-05T15:09:41Z

An NAACP notable, that is a local NAACP branch notable in Texas, praised GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul to the skies after the barrage of attacks on Paul for the racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic digs in his Ron Paul Survival Report newsletter. Herman Cain endorsed Paul rival Newt Gingrich. And despite the slap at Gingrich for racial pandering, Gingrich has never shirked from being in the company of African-American leaders including for a brief moment the Reverend Al Sharpton. His rival Rick Santorum has also gotten support from some black evangelicals including loopy Florida African-American minister O'Neal Dozier. Santorum stopped in at O'Neal's Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, during the Florida primary and got a rousing nod from Dozier. Santorum even got the even more controversial, and far out Michael the Black Man (his self-description nee Maurice Woodside) to endorse him at a Coral Spring, Florida campaign rally.

The question and mystery is if the three most unabashed conservative of the four GOP presidential candidates scrounge up some African-Americans to co-sign their campaigns why can't the fourth candidate, Mitt Romney find even one African-American to endorse him? South Carolina congressman Tim Scott, who declined to endorse anyone in the South Carolina primary didn't endorse him. Florida congressman Allen West chose a Gingrich dinner to shout to "lefties" to get the hell out of America.
Romney's goose egg in getting endorsements from black GOP officials, elected officials, any black Republican to endorse or even a few token black faces to stand behind him for stump photo-ops has been plainly apparent at his campaign rallies, stage appearance and events. They have been a staple in the background at GOP candidates and elected officials staged public functions. GOP presidential candidates for four decades have followed the lead of then GOP presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1968 with his well orchestrated, and well-placed, photo-ops with assorted moderate black leaders, and even getting occasional endorsements from a black celebrity such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Wilt Chamberlain. Former President George W. Bush went much further and managed to blunt the hard criticism that a GOP White House is almost always a virtually an exclusive white, rich, male, clubby preserve with his arguably breakthrough appointments of Coin Powell, Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, and Alberto Gonzalez, Attorney General.
So then how to explain the Romney campaign's solid whiteness. The issue of Romney's blind spot on out-reach to African-Americans was glaringly apparent during his stint at Bain Capital. Not one of the dozens of Managing Directors at Bain was African-American. More than half of Bain's directors had BAs or MBA degrees from Harvard.
That's important to note for two reasons. Harvard had made a major effort over the years to ramp up the number of African-Americans and minorities in their business programs. So there was certainly no shortage of black candidates Bain and Romney could have recruited to the company and elevated to Managing Director. Even that failure might have passed under the radar scope, except that Romney boasted during his Massachusetts Senatorial bid in 1994 that public companies should be required to report how many women and minorities they had in order to "breakthrough" the glass ceiling.

Romney boasted even louder during his tenure as Massachusetts governor that he had a sterling record when it came to appointing minorities and women to state posts. But that came after Romney was pushed and prodded by civil rights and women's groups for his near exclusive white male state house. Romney partly in response to the public pounding, and partly with an eye on a presidential run where he knew his state record on diversity would be closely scrutinized made a slew of appointments of minorities and women to the state bench in his last year in office.
Romney's lily white retinue of aides, campaign staffers, advisors, and bankrollers, not to mention endorsers has been so noticeable that even black conservative and former Oklahoma GOP congressman J.C. Watts lambasted Romney for it. Watts challenged Romney for having a virtually lily white campaign staff. A nonplussed Romney shrugged it off and blithely said that he hires the best persons that he could find. Evidently that didn't include Watts, and it wouldn't. Watts has endorsed Gingrich.
The scorecard then reads like this: Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul, all have asked for and gotten endorsements and support from African-Americans. There is no record or evidence that the supposed more moderate Romney has asked for or gotten any black support or even taken a photo-op with some dutiful blacks. The question that will loom even larger as Romney closes in on the GOP nomination is. Where are Romney's blacks?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Komen Comes to their Senses* *

2012-02-03T17:44:08Z

Some times the good guys or in this case the good gals win! This is a time for both celebration and some caution. The amazing, passionate and overwhelming outrage that greeted Komen for the Cure's ill-considered defunding of Planned Parenthood brought them to their senses. They announced the reversal of their policy a little over 24 hours from when the backlash began.

There are many factors in this quick victory by the forces of public opinion. It certainly helped that Komen's explanation of why they were severing ties with Planned Parenthood was palpably false and fooled no one. For them to hold that the mere announcement of an investigation gave them no choice but to withdraw funding was just silly--particularly since their new policy was clearly, and just recently, crafted for this specific purpose.

Nancy Brinker, the founder's assertion that politics and religion played no role was so patently risible as to diminish what remained of her credibility. The further assertion that the appointment of Karen Handel, a conservative politician and anti-choice activist, to their board had nothing to do with the defunding didn't approach the threshold of credibility and opened them up not just to anger but also to ridicule.

The anger and disappointment expressed in the blogosphere and in on-line petitions, the emails of shock and pain sent directly to Komen all brought home the seriousness of their miscalculation and the counter-productive absurdity of their denials. Brinker looked the fool on MSNBC.

Still, two more factors played decisive roles in this quick reversal. First there was pushback from the Senate and Congress with 22 Senators signing a petition urging them to reverse this policy and holding that Komen was putting women's health and their very lives in peril.

Second, special credit has to go to the brave women who, as a matter of principle, resigned their highly visible positions with Komen. One was Komen's top public health official, Mollie Williams, another was Dr. Kathy Plesser, a member of Komen's medical advisory board, and locally, Deb Anthony, executive director of Komen's Los Angeles County chapter, also resigned. They put it all on the line for women's health.

There is an important lesson here. The voices of the people, along with their wallets, make a difference. Indifference to injustice, and the passive acceptance of blatant prevarications, are irresponsible. People taking their support away and expressing their feelings and passions not simply in words but in actions, can make a difference.

But a word of caution is also required. Corporations often make mistakes and then seem to remedy them in the glaring light of publicity. Then quietly, months later, having learned their lesson but not changed their hearts, they often, quietly and gradually, re-impose the older policy. We'll all have to stay alert. It is good to celebrate the refunding of present grants. But we'll have to see if they fund new grants to Planned Parenthood in the future.

* Up-Date: Komen may in fact be doubling down on its craven betrayal of women by adding further deception. They announced that they will continue already committed funding and "preserve their (Planned Parenthood's) ability to apply for future grants." They have not approved the grant proposals already submitted for next year. More dishonesty. I'll personally continue to withhold any support.
**It gets worse and worse for Komen. They try to dump Planned Parenthood but partner with Smith & Wesson promoting a pink pistol in "honor" of Breast Cancer Awareness. Some of the profits will go to Komen. Nothing says Fight Breast Cancer better than an automatic weapon. This is the foreseeable mess you get when conservative Texas and southern politics pollute a good cause. They have truly shot themselves in the foot!
***Susan G Komen for the Cure denies any connection with the gun promotion. But then they also deny any political influence or the issue of abortion playing any part in their first planned defunding.

How do you spell the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Easy DUMB, DUMB, DUMB

2012-02-02T17:13:20Z

It's not the firestorm that the Susan G. foundation touched off by lopping off funding to Planned Parenthood last year and that it announced the other day. It's not even the foundation's right to lop off the funds. Though they could have done better than put out the weak, silly, half-baked line that it had nothing to do with abortion, or that it buckled to pressure from anti-abortion groups. It did, and everybody knows it. It's not even about sullying Komen's reputation. Since the foundation does good work in raising cancer awareness, and pours much money into women's cancer prevention education programs.
No, Komen's dumb move did exactly what anti-abortionists and presumably at least some of the shot callers at Komen didn't want to happen. And that's turn the funding hit against Planned Parenthood into a walking advertisement for PP. In the space of 24 hours, PP raised nearly a half million dollars in online donations from more than 6000 donors. And that's just online, almost certainly the organization will raise tens of thousands more in the days to come as cash and checks continue to pour in.

Komen's dumb move also gave PP something that spending thousands in ad dollars couldn't do. And that's promote PP's organization and cause. PP has and will continue to do just fine without Komen's cash. But there's a cautionary tale that Komen and anti-abortionists again told the world. That's be careful when you try to bully something into happening, the very opposite usually happens. PP is the latest proof of that.

Komen Becomes Craven by Betraying Women

2012-02-01T22:53:53Z

What a shame, what a stain on the name of Susan G Komenthat the foundation named in her honor and memory has thrown living women under the bus of conservative anti-women politics. The foundation (I won't use its name and further besmirch her memory) has severed ties with Planned Parenthood. Their reason/rationale is completely disingenuous. They claim that a brand new regulation, that they just promulgated themselves, forces them to defund any group under investigation.

Given this congress ginning up an investigation is easy. There is no standard of evidence, probable, or even reasonable, cause. All you need are some guys who want to control women's bodies and their health and reproductive choices. So, some men have begun "investigating" whether Planned Parenthood may have used some federal funds illegally to support abortion. Apparently, just raising the question is now enough to make the foundation abandon poor women.

I have to admit that I am not an objective observer here. I worked as a volunteer counselor for Planned Parenthood and saw first hand the full spectrum of health services this amazing organization delivered to poor and middleclass women and girls. I saw lives changed and even saved by counseling, emotional support, screening and access to reduced cost medical treatment.

For the foundation, otherwise dedicated to the transcendently important issue of breast cancer, to be intimidated into withholding support for the educational and diagnostic services that Planned Parenthood offers is reprehensible. We should all support the search for the cure, but I do not see how we can support this craven and cowardly foundation. My money will go to Planned Parenthood, The Jonsson Cancer Center at UCLA, the Norris Cancer Center at USC and City of Hope.
©2012 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Tunisia and the Islamists

2012-01-31T23:23:22Z

When I left Tunisia following my two years in the Peace Corps, my government said something to me that was completely true. "Whatever your experience, good or bad, you will always read every story about 'your country'." Up until a year ago this was both true and easy. However, since the start of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, keeping up has been a nearly full-time job. Fortunately this also relates to my "day job," teaching Comparative Religion and Current Events at American Jewish University.

My sub-specialty, that ties these two subjects together, is Islam. I studied it both formally at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and informally with the Imam of Nabeul, the town where I lived. As a Jew, with a pretty good working knowledge of Islam, I am alarmed by some developments in Tunisia and the rest of the Arab World. However, about some things that alarm others, I have a more nuanced position. And yes, I know "nuance" is not a good word either in times of danger or a political year.

No, it is not good news that in Tunis there are riots by the extreme Islamists, the Salafists. They are protesting the showing of the cartoon movie Persepolis in a Tunis cinema. They found it insulting to Islam and want the people responsible arrested (done) and tried (not yet). Nor is it good news that these extremists are pushing women back into veils and moving from a secular model of government to one steeped in religion.

I certainly don't think it is good news when intolerant extremism happens in Israel or in America, whether it involves evolution, birth control or the role and rights of women. For all our denigration of politicians and the political process, politicians can, in theory, compromise. It is much harder to negotiate or compromise on religious principles. We don't normally vote on beliefs, faith or the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures of any faith--even our own.

The deeper point, beyond the apparent and real dangers of extremism in the Muslim World in general, and in "my" Tunisia in particular, is that we far too often have a simplistic and negative view of anything with Islamist in the title. Of course I am concerned when religion and politics intersect, as they are doing all over the world, but Islamist is not the same as fanatic, nor does fundamentalist--Muslim, Christian or Jew--mean violent and intolerant.

I studied Islam in Nabeul with a fundamentalist Imam. Yes, he was the cliché of the blind Imam, but had deep insight, understanding and tolerance. He was both learned and wise. He had read, when sighted, not only the Quran, Haddiths and Canoons, but also the works of Aristotle, Plato and Shakespeare. He had read Hebrew Scriptures and the Injel, the Gospels of the Christians--all in Arabic. While he didn't speak French or English, he facilitated his French-speaking wife in opening a school for young girls, to give them literacy in both Arabic and French.

Knowing I was a Jew, as my entire village did, he accepted me into his home and into one-on-one tutorials and conversations. His oldest son had already opened the door of acceptance by marrying an American who was not a Muslim. His oldest daughter had a degree from the university in Tunis and had studied in France. His spiritual eyes were wide open.

He was a fundamentalist and understood, in my view correctly, that the fundamentals of his faith were embodied in Mercy and Compassion. He understood that the Christian fundamentals were manifest in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and pleading for the widow and orphan. He accepted the Jewish idea of religious values being acted out in the Mitzvot, good deeds, understood as both obligations and opportunities. He truly grasped the fundamentals.

So when I read about various Islamic-centered parties, I have to remember that Islam is as wide and diverse as any other faith. I have to remember that we often misunderstand others by judging them by their very worst exemplars. Once upon a time we were predisposed to believe religious people were better than average. Now we seem ready to assume that they are worse. Both presuppositions are flawed. We must remember that all faiths have fundamentalists who forget the fundamentals of loving kindness. And all have fundamentalists who strive to practice and perfect the true fundamentals at the beating heart of their faiths.

I feel both apprehension and hope for Tunisia. I am not ready to write off the mainstream Islamist party, because I remember fondly my teacher Si Salah Mamouri and his great, generous and open home, heart and mind.
©2012 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

This Time President Obama Literally in Gun Toters Sights

2012-01-30T05:02:13Z

The bullet riddled tee shirt of President Obama posted brazenly on Facebook by seven semi-automatic gun toting men among them a Peoria, Arizona police sergeant was much more than the by now standard non-stop litany of racist cartoons, depictions, web postings, and kooky loose talk threats against President Obama. The gun toting men and the police sergeant were taking target practice on the president's likeness at an undisclosed desert locale. This is Arizona. The state where many legislators think it's ok to pack guns in the legislature, and for citizens to openly pack them in public. This is the state where former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was nearly killed in an assassination attempt, and where there's a wide body of respectable opinion starting with a finger in the face of the president governor, Jan Brewer, that simply loathes the president's policies and in many cases him personally. The gun toting men made a virtual public call for the gunning down of the president comes on Facebook.
It comes against the backdrop of Secret Service reports that the rate of threats against the President Obama has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush. He receives dozens of assassination threats continuously, and that number has been steady before and during the campaign and increased after he took office. Federal law is very clear on Threatening the President of the United States. It is a class D felony under United States Code Title 18, Section 871. It consists of knowingly and willfully mailing or otherwise making "any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States."
The Secret Service has taken the threats against the president seriously and has diligently investigated every one of them. In a few cases, prosecutors have brought charges. But here is the problem, in fact several problems. How seriously do other public officials take them, especially in places like Peoria, Arizona. Peoria, Arizona officials did not suspend the police sergeant pending review and investigation, let alone fire him, or call for a prosecution of him or his gun toting pals. Their weak, duck and dodge response was at worst that he may have violated the police department's employee conduct rules on the use of social media. There was no immediate response from Peoria, Arizona Mayor Bob Barrett or Peoria, city council persons to calls for them to take action against the officer and men involved.

The Secret Service also has had other worries, namely about staffing. At one point, in 2010 there was a report that in a budget request the Secret Service was understaffed and under-resourced. The Service denied it and insisted it had the resources and personnel to meet any security issue involving the president. But the president's hands on meet the people routine during his non-stop road travels throughout the country is a constant challenge to any protective and enforcement agency.

The intense concern over Obama's safety has been intense since he announced he would seek the presidency in February 2007. He had the dubious distinction of being the earliest presidential contender to be assigned Secret Service protection on the campaign trail. This didn't ease the jitters over his safety. Several congressional members even then demanded that Secret Service officials provide all the resources and personnel they could to ensure Obama's and the other presidential candidates' security. They heard the whispers and nervous questions from his constituents about Obama's safety.

During the presidential campaign in 2008, the flood of crank, crackpot, and screwball threats that promised murder and mayhem toward Obama continued to pour in. This prompted the Secret Service to tighten security and take even more elaborate measures to ensure his safety. This was especially important given the deep doubt and even paranoid suspicion that some blacks have that shadowy government agencies were complicit in the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, and the fervent belief of millions of other Americans that the CIA or other government agencies were deeply complicit in the killing, if not outright murder of JFK.

There is nothing shadowy or conspiratorial about what police sergeant Shearer and his gun packing friends in Peoria, Arizona did. It was brazen and very open. The clueless Shearer for his part saw nothing inappropriate, let alone, dangerous, about what he did. He chalked it up to much ado about nothing or as he put it he didn't think that shooting up a t-shirt with President Obama's face on it "was that big a deal." It was more than a big deal. The target in their in gun sights, not a regular bull eye, a likeness of Howdy Doody, or a Cactus plant. It was President Obama. Federal prosecutors should see that they see it as the "big deal" that it is and bring charges.

That Massachusetts Moderate & His Dreaded Moderation

2012-01-26T23:13:48Z

Words often don't mean what we think they mean, and this is particularly true in politics. Words become labels and labels become libels. Our political discourse has so deteriorated that in Republican circles calling someone a moderate is an insult--a pejorative.

The beginning of the denigration of moderation began in one moment. This is quite unusual for a phrase and attitude to have a clear birthday. That moment was when Barry Goldwater in accepting the nomination of the Republican Party to run against LBJ famously said, "Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice."

Once upon a time moderation in all things was a virtue--or so Aristotle taught and most societies believed. When we wanted to shout invective or smear an opponent we called them extremists, we called them Reds, or Pinkos. We called them Pigs, Fascists or Brown Shirts. Hardly anyone, outside the Panthers or SDS, in the 60s screamed, "Off the moderates!"

But now Romney is figuratively spat upon by Newt and all the "true conservatives," for being that Massachusetts Moderate. In this case Massachusetts Moderate is the East Coast version of San Francisco Liberal. Okay, I get SF as being iconically liberal, and I get why the right wants to demonize it. But demonizing Massachusetts and moderation?

Most Americans are politically moderate. Yes, you can throw red meat at either base, but our broad middle is non-ideological and not repelled by moderation. Extremes may be tempting to the passions--and they are certainly entertaining, but this is for a fling on a weekend and not a four-year relationship in our homes, kitchens, dens and bedrooms. Gingrich and Kucinich are fun for a while but we really don't want to live with either one.

Now I make no argument for or against Romney. I have no idea what his real positions may be. He might be the conservative he is presenting this season. He might be the liberal who ran to the left of Ted Kennedy in the 90s. He probably does not actually know himself. He may have gotten lost in his drive to appeal and be accepted. I think him likely to be a kind of "method politician," who like a method actor, gets lost in the present role. However, I see no evidence that he is an example of the dreaded moderate. Moderate does not mean being philosophically incoherent, nor is it manifest by taking far left and far right positions and then averaging them. That would be like taking 50 men and 50 women and concluding that the average gender was hermaphroditic. Moderation is an attitude that is open to hearing both sides and finding practical solutions not based on ideology. It is thoughtful and not simply wishy-washy or opportunistic. Whatever it is, it should not be an epithet.

Back to My Future, Back to Chicago

2012-01-25T23:17:56Z

I've been planning this move for twenty years, which may rate on the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's longest move. The earliest stages started almost the day I moved from my beloved Chicago to sunny and smoggy Los Angeles. I talked about moving back so much that I sometimes felt like the Kunta Kinte on "Roots." Unfortunately, Kunta Kinte died before he got back home, and there were times I was afraid that that would be me.

I was between jobs anyway, and my parents thought it would be a step up because I wanted to be a screenwriter at the time and because screenwriting does not exactly happen in Chicago like it does out here. To some sunbirds, Los Angeles with its year-round sunshine is a Mecca, but those of us with Midwestern souls never quite get that or many of the nuances out here. We like our sunshine, but we also like our rain, hail, sleet and snow, too, and we get plenty of that out there.

And the culture doesn't register with many of us. There were times I thought that if English wasn't the official language, I would have thought I was in a foreign country. Like the times people in supermarkets waited for me to move rather than using their words and saying "excuse me," or the times people looked through me like I was invisible.

Besides, I missed the way the grass rustles in the Chicago breeze at springtime, the first snowfall and the gleaming glass buildings on Michigan Avenue. Chicagoans have a sense of pride and ownership in the city that comes from being born and raised in a place and from having grandparents and aunts and uncles who live there and from going to school there. If ever there were a place where the six degrees of separation ring true, Chicago is it. And Chicagoans are polite on the whole. Even ex-Governor, Rod Blagojevich, never lost his temper or his cool after getting busted. That is Chicago.

Besides, it is different being in a place you know is right for you or have to flee for political reasons. I know an Afghani man, a lawyer in his country, who came to this country because the Taliban jailed him for telling women they had rights.

I've thought of my city almost every day for the twenty plus years, and I visited as often as I could, sometimes in the dead of winter to see if I could tolerate it. One November when my father was ill, I went back to see him, and I looked out the window at night and noticed the bare branches of the trees blowing in the wind as the clouds raced by and thought that the place has passion and that this is where I need to be.

Maybe that's why we produced some of the best and most notorious politicians in the world from the late Mayor Richard J. Daley to Rod Blagojevich to Barack Obama. It's because no one is neutral on anything, ever. Everyone has an agenda and an opinion. On one visit, I saw a guy trimming his fingernails on the el train, seemingly oblivious as his nail trimmings flew all over the train. It was a real gaffe, but then it was all so earthy and all so Chicago. On another visit, I was standing at a stoplight downtown and saw a cabbie running the yellow light to avoid getting ticketed by the policewoman who was walking alongside the cab. Through the closed windows of his cab, she threatened to ticket his arse while he slowly drove through the intersection and off. This is all so Chicago, too.

Dan Castellaneta, who plays Homer Simpson on the "Simpsons," is from Chicago. In the mid-80's, we worked together on a kid's show called the "Magic Door." I always knew he'd hit it big even when playing the bumbling and confused Detective Farblunget, (lost and confused in Yiddish) or writing scripts for the show. John Malkovich is from there, too, and it is the home of the famed Second City theatre company where many of these people are discovered by Los Angeles talent scouts sitting in the audience. Maybe it's our passion they pickup on; maybe it's our Midwestern work ethic. I don't know, but they pick up on something.

So now that I am able to and still have breath in my body, it is time to go home. I have been patient, and I waited long enough. I will miss certain things about LA but my heart and soul are in the land of the amiable yet crooked politicians and the tree branches swaying against the sky in winter and hanging on for dear, sweet life.