Planned Parenthood

As House Republicans threaten to shut down the government over federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the woman at the helm of that controversial organization, Cecile Richards, is fighting to set the record straight about what exactly is at stake.

"This isn't about federal funds being cut from Planned Parenthood," Richards, who's led Planned Parenthood since 2006, told The Huffington Post. "What has been proposed by the House of Representatives is to say that women can no longer go to Planned Parenthood to get their cancer screenings, to get their birth control, to get any kind of services through federal programs. That's what's getting lost here," she said.

After weeks of federal budget negotiations, the focus has shifted in the past couple of days from economic issues to a particular rider that would eliminate all government funding to Planned Parenthood through the Title X family planning program. Conservatives are targeting Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics provide abortions, even though those abortions make up less than three percent of Planned Parenthood's services and federal money is not used to pay for abortion services. Democrats, who have already accepted about a dozen provisions Republicans tacked onto the budget bill, are digging their feet in on the issue of Planned Parenthood funding.

Richards said she is frustrated that the Planned Parenthood rider is being misleadingly portrayed as a fight against "abortion funding," when so many patients in rural and medically underserved communities depend on Planned Parenthood clinics as a primary health provider.

Government Shutdown Not Yet Averted As White House Meeting Fails To Produce Deal

President Barack Obama says another round of talks with congressional leaders has helped but there is no deal yet to avert a government shutdown.

Obama said he hoped to be able to announce a deal on Friday but "there's no certainty yet." He said he told House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he wants an answer in the morning.

The president spoke briefly to reporters after meeting for roughly an hour in the Oval Office with Boehner and Reid. Those two leaders said jointly that the latest round of talks had narrowed the issues. They pledged to work through the night to break the impasse.

Government shut-down blame game – some facts

Obviously the first and most important point to be made about the possibility of the government shutting down this week is the fact that had Democrats, who held a majority in both the House and Senate last year, done their basic job of passing a budget, this wouldn’t be an impending problem.

Now, unsurprisingly, it has devolved into a political battle pitting the Republicans on the side of cutting spending as their constituency insists upon (and voted for) against Democrats who, failing to do their job last year, now are dragging their feet in the Senate (the House passed a continuing resolution to fund government 46 days ago) and making veto threats from the White House.

Funny, how politics works, isn’t it?  Those who didn’t do their job last year or provide any leadership on the subject are now actively working against passage of a stop-gap funding measure and prepared to blame those who are attempting to fix the problem for any government shutdown which might occur....