Reactions to the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to stop giving Planned Parenthood grant money to provide breast cancer screenings have been very negative here. And I gather from watching the national news that Komen is getting quite a bit of blowback for putting politics ahead of women's health.

The local Komen chapter, worried that a city that hosts one of the biggest Race for the Cure events in the country is reacting so negatively to the Planned Parenthood decision, is asking people not to judge the local by the actions of the national Komen office. Good luck with that.

I have no sympathy for Komen. They chose to side with a political witch hunt. Cliff Stearns, a whacko Republican congressman from Florida, has launched this investigation. What else has Stearns done? According to Charlie Pierce

Stearns is the guy who added to the Zadroga bill, which provided for federal relief to the first responders who worked on the pile at Ground Zero in New York, the ludicrous requirement that the names of all applicants for such relief first be checked against all terrorist watch-list. He also once attacked PBS because the South African version of Sesame Street introduced a character who was HIV-positive.

You are now the proud owners of the most expensive military ever seen, plus coming increases that will be presented as "cuts."

When the Supercommittee failed, automatic federal budget cuts were to kick in -- half to things we need and half to the bloated military. The military cuts would take us back to 2004 spending. We seem to have survived 2004 and the years preceding it OK.

The Pentagon claims to be making other cuts already, but they are "cuts" to dream budgets resulting in actual budget increases -- and that's not even counting increased war spending through other departments.

"One day ahead of the government's monthly jobs report, the Department of Labor said this morning that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell to a seasonally adjusted 367,000 for the week ending Jan. 28,, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week's revised figure. The four-week moving average, which analysts prefer because it flattens volatility, fell to 375,750. Claims have now been under 400,000 for eight of the past 10 weeks."