Friday, June 29, 2007

39.2 Million Suckers

Harsh, yes.

But when one considers this:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first female candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, drew the night's largest cheer when she suggested there was a hint of racism in the way AIDS is addressed in this country.

"Let me just put this in perspective: If HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34 there would be an outraged, outcry in this country," said the New York senator.

but remembers this:

It is with sadness that I learn about your efforts to block the bipartisan Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006 (S. 2823) and gut the funding formula reforms supported by 19 of the 20 Senators on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I must share with you the bewilderment of African Americans throughout the country who cannot understand why you are taking this stand against opening the door to more equitable funding that will chiefly benefit people of color who currently have nowhere to turn but the federal government.

African Americans have overtaken every other ethnic group to become the face of HIV/AIDS in America, and we all have a duty to ensure that every black American living with HIV/AIDS has equal access to the care and support services needed from the federal Ryan White CARE Act to stay healthy and stay alive.

As with most health care problems, people of color are now disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS, much more so than at any time since AIDS emerged in 1981. But the current Ryan White CARE Act funding formulas have never been updated to fit the changing epidemic, creating growing inequities that have thrown many patients onto waiting lists for life-saving drugs because money has run out in their states, particularly in the South.

Women of color in the South are 26 times more likely to be HIV- positive than white females. But a third of all Ryan White CARE Act funding is set aside for large metropolitan areas, and most of the states in the South will never qualify. African Americans make up 19 percent of the South's population, but accounted for over 60 percent of all new AIDS cases in 2003. Eight southern states have to treat the same number of people with HIV/AIDS as other states which get more funding under the outdated formulas.

The growing inequities are obvious and unacceptable. Addressing these gaps requires bipartisan compromise. I urge you to join that effort and not to obstruct it.

Your effort to wipe out the adjustment to the hold-harmless provision in Title I, and leave it at 95 percent for three years, will gut the funding that the reforms were trying to secure. It will render the Title I reforms meaningless and sentence African Americans in the rural South to three more years of waiting lists for AIDS drugs and vital services. People in the rural south don't have the tax base or the state resources to survive without federal help in a crisis. Efforts to gut the federal funding in the committee's mark of S. 2823 shows a disturbing misunderstanding for the health care interests of the whole nation and the whole African American community. The CARE Act is a national program, and it's imperative that we fight to make sure it serves all Americans fairly in 2006.

....harsh words seem more than warranted.

In short, Hillary Clinton is badmouthing and calling racist her own refusal to direct HIV funding to the black communities who need it the most -- because her predominantly-white gay Democrat donors in New York City didn't want to go without Gray Goose at their galas.

But does the black community call her on it? No.

What this makes beyond obvious is that Hillary Clinton is a hypocritical liar who will self-righteously condemn in one venue what she practices and pushes in another.

But really, who is more at fault here, the one who lies to and backstabs the minority group.........or the minority group that says nothing and lets them get away with it?

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