(NNPA)—As President Barack Obama directs aircraft carriers and transport planes jammed with food, medicine and as physicians, relief workers and journalists risk their lives to help beleaguered Haitians, the callous, venomous statements of Rush Limbaugh and Rev. Pat Robertson show just how irrelevant the GOP has become.

With gifts to the American Red Cross totaling about $35 million in the first 48 hours of the disaster, U.S. citizens text-messaging millions, school children chipping in their spending change and CNN showing the tragedy to the world, the ugly words coming from the Republicans have me saying “Thank God America is not like them. Not anymore.”

(NNPA)—Much of what I feel about the monumental crisis in Haiti is similar to Katrina in that it was a man-made event waiting to happen. Haiti has existed in the backwater of the most powerful country in the world for 200 years as the poorest example of human hospitality.

But since the defeat of Haiti by the French in 1804, the character of U.S. policy and relations has resembled Western resentment and as such, Haiti has been left essentially to it own devises. Frederick Douglass, who served briefly as U.S. consul to Haiti in 1889, said in a speech that, “Haiti is so near us and so capable of being serviceable to us....[yet] she is the one country to which we turn the cold shoulder.” He felt that the deep reason for the “coolness” is that “Haiti is Black.” He resigned when it became clear that the U.S. aimed to annex the major port in that country against the wishes of the rulers of the country.

(REAL TIMES MEDIA)—Football is the most popular and profitable sport played in the United States. While hockey is almost forgotten, NASCAR stays with a niche audience, baseball struggles with scandal and about eight NBA teams are treading water financially and the NFL keeps raking in the billions. Even in a recession attendance remains high, profits are high and the Super Bowl remains an unofficial holiday even for non-sports fans. With all that going for them, it makes you wonder why the NFL is looking for a handout from the Supreme Court of the United States.

Harry Reid is not racist and Republican calls for his resignation are misguided. There I said it.
The Senate majority leader has recently come under fire for remarks attributed to him in the new book “Game Change.” Authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann say that in 2008 Reid described then candidate Obama as a “‘light-skinned’ African-American ‘with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.’” The comments have been seen by some as being racially insensitive.