Republicans' True Agenda in Shutting Down the Government: End Women's Rights! Stop Aid to the Poor! More Tax Cuts for the Rich!

Senator Harry Reid said, "Republicans want to shut down the government because they think there's nothing more important than keeping women from getting cancer screenings." Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ryan submitted a Congressional Budget demanding additional Billions in Tax Cuts for the Rich while dumping Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the Poor! (How Ludicrous) As far as Republicans' disrespect for Women in the current budget negotiations, Republicans have added an addendum to the Congressional Budget. They want to block $70 million Planned Parenthood receives each year under Title X, a program implemented under Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970 to provide contraceptives, cancer screenings, and pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease testing at community health centers across the country. And they want to cut off $293 million the clinics receive through Medicare. Republican lawmakers have LIED and said the money indirectly subsidizes abortions, despite the fact that the federal Hyde Amendment expressly prohibits such use of taxpayer funds. Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., repeated the Republican LIE today that abortions are "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does." He later clarified his LIE saying it was inaccurate and was "not intended to be a factual statement." (ridiculous!) Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, but it issued a fact sheet today stating that more than 90 percent of its health care services are preventive, not abortions. The company says no taxpayer funds are used to fund abortions. "It's an outrage to shut down the government over an extreme proposal that would deny millions of women Pap tests, breast cancer screenings and birth control," said Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.

On this Ball of Confusion, Racism is still Prevalent. However, Reid's and Lott's Comments were Very Different!

The book "Game Change" was released last week. This gossipy book written by two national reporters took an inside, behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential campaign. Apparently, during the campaign, Senate leader Harry Reid called then-candidate Obama: “light-skinned” and that he does not speak with a “Negro dialect,” both of which are true and both of which made Barack Obama — in Reid’s opinion — electable.

When I heard this comment, it reminded me of what Joe Biden said when he was a Presidential Candidate running against Obama in the campaign. Biden said, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Both Reid's and Biden's comments were their lame attempts at complimenting Obama. They were falling into the old stereotype of the light skinned House nixxer being the Best of the group. How many people think like this? How many people think most blacks (minorities) are NOT articulate? Are NOT bright and clean? Are NOT intelligent? How many people in this country think the same way? Even though they attempted to be positive, this just shows you how far we have to go regarding the discussion of race in our country.

While I do not agree with their comments or this line of thinking, their comments are NOT as deplorable as Trent Lott's comments. Republicans are comparing Reid to Trent Lott and say Reid should resign as Lott resigned as Senate majority leader in 2002 after he made a racist comment.

Let's go back and examine the comments Lott made in 2002 about Strom Thurmond. Sen. Thurmond was a proud racist back in his day. He was so proud that in 1948, he ran for President as the Segregationist States Rights Party (Dixiecrat). One of Thurmond's rallying cries was, "We cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches and our places of recreation." At Thurmond's 100th birthday party, Lott said about his state voting for Thurmond for President, “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

Lott was complimenting a hard-core racist who openly promoted racist exclusionary policies and was adamantly and openly against the Civil Rights movement and integration. Lott said if we would have followed Thurmond's segregationist lead, "we wouldn't have had all of THESE (minority) problems over all these years."

There is no comparison between the two statements.

What is clear, however, is racism is still very prevalent in our country. We have a long way to go before we become a post racial society. We still have miles to go before people of any color are judged by the content of our character versus the color of our skin.