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Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama’s climate change strategy
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian
The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama’s climate change strategy, according to campaigners.
A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ”energy citizen” rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a “sensitive” plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a “human face” on opposition to climate and energy reform.
After the clamour over healthcare, the memo raises the possibility of a new round of protests against a key Obama issue…
(14 August 2009)
‘Energy Citizens’ Take Aim at Climate Legislation
Alex Kaplun, New York Times
A coalition of industry groups and conservative advocacy organizations will launch a “grass roots” campaign next week aimed at urging the Senate to make business-friendly changes to the House-passed energy and climate bill.
Organized under the banner of “Energy Citizens,” the effort will kick off Tuesday with an event in Houston and will continue at least through Labor Day, just before Congress returns from its summer recess.
The coalition combines business and industry groups — the American Petroleum Institute, the American Farm Bureau, the American Highway Users Alliance, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council — with conservative advocacy organizations that include the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste and FreedomWorks…
(12 August 2009)
An American neocon defends the NHS
Carol Gould, The Telegraph
In the wake of the public outcry in the United States that has seen the conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh apparently compare universal health care to some sort of neo-Nazi Reich I thought I would recount a story from earlier this year. Let me make my political leanings clear from the outset: I am a neocon. Having supported the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush triumvirate and their Iraq and Afghanistan interventions I have duly enraged thousands who listen to me on the BBC and watch me on Sky and Press TV. Notwithstanding this my views on universal health care are strictly Socialist.
From November 2008 to March 2009 I lived in a parallel universe. It is a universe in which many may have dwelt: the world of Life Support in Intensive Care. But more than that it has been a story of British health care at its magnificent best.
…In the wake of the public outcry in the United States that has seen the conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh apparently compare universal health care to some sort of neo-Nazi Reich I thought I would recount a story from earlier this year. Let me make my political leanings clear from the outset: I am a neocon. Having supported the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush triumvirate and their Iraq and Afghanistan interventions I have duly enraged thousands who listen to me on the BBC and watch me on Sky and Press TV. Notwithstanding this my views on universal health care are strictly Socialist.
From November 2008 to March 2009 I lived in a parallel universe. It is a universe in which many may have dwelt: the world of Life Support in Intensive Care. But more than that it has been a story of British health care at its magnificent best…
(18 August 2009)
Democrats Seem Set to Go It Alone on a Health Bill
Carl Hulse and Jeff Zelany, New York Times
Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.
Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed…
(18 August 2009)
