it handled *Plan A* (Iraq War). Manipulate the evidence until it fits your own agenda and then impose it on America. One doctor's personal religious views now control the FDA and every woman in America.
The Debate Over Plan B
Nov. 27, 2005 (CBS) When the “morning after pill,” also known as “Plan B,” was put on the market in 1999, it was described as an emergency contraceptive that prevents a pregnancy in cases of rape or accidents like condom breaks.
It is only available by prescription. But because women need to take it within 72 hours, the drug's manufacturer applied to the Food and Drug Administration two years ago for permission to sell Plan B over the counter.
The drug is considered totally safe, so the request was seen as a slam dunk. But then Plan B became the target of anti-abortion rights groups, and part of the wider controversy over whether religious beliefs are encroaching on scientific decision-making. 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports.
Until last August, Dr. Susan Wood headed the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health and was one of the scientists inside the agency arguing that Plan B should be available without a prescription. “If it's safe, and it is, and effective, it's more effective the quicker you have it. This is why it needs to be over-the-counter,” she says.
“If you need it on Saturday morning, Monday morning is too late. Getting to a physician to get a prescription, getting that prescription to a pharmacy and getting it filled takes time, as we all know. Then what are you going to do?” says Wood.
That’s a question that a woman named Evelyn faced last year, when she was raped at a New York nightclub.
Evelyn, age 22 at the time, was rushed to St. Vincent’s hospital, the nearest emergency room.
She says the hospital did not offer her an emergency contraceptive.
“It was something that they were supposed to offer,” says Evelyn’s mother, Sandi. “In the situation as my daughter’s, as Evelyn’s situation, they were supposed to offer, you know, and let the person make the decision as to whether or not they wanted it. I didn’t know that it was optional.”
Sandi says she knew about a New York law that says all hospitals must offer rape victims emergency contraception like Plan B.
Sandi called the nurse who had treated Evelyn at St. Vincent’s. “I said, ‘Why did you not give it to her?’ And she very rudely said to me, ‘Well, we're a Catholic hospital. We don't do birth control.’ At which point, I told them what they could do with being a Catholic hospital and their views on birth control — I'd rather not say that on the air,” she recalls. “I was absolutely livid.”
Because of Evelyn's case, St. Vincent’s is under investigation by the state of New York. The hospital told 60 Minutes it is now complying with the law.
Evelyn finally got a prescription for Plan B, and took it 10 hours after the rape. Had she not gotten Plan B and had gotten pregnant, Evelyn says she would have had an abortion. “I'm glad that that didn't have to happen, I never had to experience that, she says.
The Catholic Church opposes Plan B not just because it’s birth control, but because it considers use of Plan B to be, in Cardinal Egan of New York’s words, “a chemical abortion.”
But Wood says this is not an abortion pill. “There is an abortion pill called RU-486, and this is not it,” she says. “An abortion pill interrupts an established pregnancy. This product is contraception. It does not interrupt an established pregnancy.”
She says even if you took it and were already pregnant, it would not end the pregnancy. “The only connection this product has with abortion is that it can prevent them by preventing an unintended pregnancy,” says Wood.
There is some debate about that interpretation. Most of the time, Plan B works by stopping ovulation so that a pregnancy cannot occur. In a small percentage of cases, when a woman is ovulating on the day she has unprotected sex, a fertilized egg could form. In that case, Plan B might prevent the egg from implanting in her uterus.
While most doctors do not consider that an abortion, anti-abortion-rights doctors do, such as David Hager, a gynecologist from Lexington, Ky., who won’t prescribe Plan B for his own patients.
“One of the mechanisms of action can be to inhibit implantation, which means that it may act as an abortifacient,” says Dr. Hager. He says abortifacient means it causes an abortion and that this medication may act to inhibit implantation.
In 2002, Dr. Hager got a call from the Bush White House asking him to serve on the FDA advisory committee charged with reviewing Plan B’s over-the-counter application along with two other anti-abortion-rights physicians. But when Hager argued against Plan B at committee meetings, he didn’t talk about abortion.
“I was concerned about 10, 11, 12-year-old girls buying this product,” says Hager.
He raised moral questions. “I’m not in favor of promotion of a product that would increase sexual activity among teenagers,” he says.
Hager speculated about an increase in sexually-transmitted diseases. “I’m saying that it is possible that with the use of Plan B the individual may put herself at greater risk,” he says.
But the advisory panel reviewed 40 studies that refuted his objections and showed that Plan B does not lead to more cases of sexually transmitted disease, or more risky sexual behavior.
Even Dr. Hager admits Plan B is totally safe. The FDA says there have been no deaths, no heart attacks, no strokes and no evidence of misuse or abuse.
But, he says, one of his major concerns is that young women wouldn’t go to their doctors if such a drug were readily available.
“If we approve this for over-the-counter sale, then what is that going to do as far as what I call access to medical care for younger adolescent women?” Hager asks.
Wood disputes that view. “Is this cutting the doctor out? Would it cut out their relationship? Well, in fact, I think there’s strong argument that the physicians themselves want this product to be over the counter.”
Wood says the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Medical Association have all endorsed making this product available over the counter. That includes pediatrics, meaning younger girls.
If Plan B is sold over the counter anyone — any age — could buy it easily in a drugstore, like cough syrup or bubble bath. A big part of this issue is whether pharmacies will stock it. What if they refuse to carry Plan B?
In a survey of drugstores in Kentucky, Dr. Hager’s home state, the American Civil Liberties Union found that most pharmacies didn’t carry Plan B; 83 of them said they would even refuse to order it for women with prescriptions. These include Wal-Mart, which has a nationwide policy against dispensing Plan B.
The American Civil Liberties Union got a prescription for a woman named Fran, and sent her to five pharmacies undercover. 60 Minutes went along with a hidden camera to see what would happen.
Only one pharmacy, Kmart, had Plan B in stock; another drug store offered to order it, but the pharmacist told Fran it would take several days before they could possibly get it.
Remember, it has to be taken within 72 hours.
At another store, Fran was turned down by a pharmacist who explained that she believes it’s an abortion pill. “The morning after pill is after you have that fertilized egg, and that is a baby. You are not allowing it to implant. So it is considered abortive,” the pharmacist said.
The next day, Fran and 60 Minutes went back to that pharmacy together and found the same pharmacist.
“Anyone can walk in off the street and we can refuse to fill a prescription,” the pharmacists said. Asked whether a prescription could be refused on religious grounds, the pharmacists said, “On any grounds. Personal preference. Any reason, we can refuse to fill a prescription.”
But the Kentucky state pharmacy board told 60 Minutes that pharmacists must have a professional medical reason, not simply a personal preference, to turn away a prescription for Plan B or anything else.
The pharmacy did offer birth control but the pharmacist did not consider Plan B birth control.
So, with Plan B mired in the abortion debate, the FDA advisory committee took its vote on recommending whether it should be sold over the counter.
Dr. Hager voted “no.” But his colleagues on the committee rejected his arguments, voting 23 to four in favor of offering the drug over the counter.
Such a lop-sided vote should have meant the application would sail through. But then the saga of Plan B took a strange turn.
Dr. Hager says someone at the FDA — he won’t say who — asked him to write a “minority report” in which he asked for more studies and more data on the use of Plan B by young girls.
A few months later something totally unexpected happened: The FDA ignored the committee’s overwhelming vote and rejected the proposal to sell Plan B over the counter, citing the very concerns in Hager’s report.
Some people believe Hager raised these objections because of his religious beliefs, but that’s something he denies. “The religious aspect did not enter into that decision for me,” he says.
But in to a speech he gave to a Christian college, he seemed to admit his role was all about religion. “God has used me to stand in the breach for the cause of the kingdom,” Hager said at the time.
He was talking about Plan B.
“I argued it from a scientific perspective. And God took that information and He used it through this minority report to influence a decision. You don't have to wave your bible to have an effect as a Christian in the public arena,” says Hager.
Hager says he did not mean to suggest that God wanted Plan B to fail, and that he was His instrument. “I thought that God used me, He'd used my individual gifts of, whatever, in an individual way to be able to express my opinion.”
But with the speech, Hager may have fueled the fire of those who say that all he did was try to cloak religious beliefs in scientific language.
“If the idea in the population of this country is that a person can’t be a person of faith and also be a person of science, I strongly disagree with that,” says Hager.
Should agencies like the FDA be completely divorced from the debates that go on in society?
“Again, the question the agency has to deal with is, is it safe? And is it safe for teens? Yes, it is,” says Wood. “Have we asked that question about other contraceptive methods? Are we going to label, take condoms behind the counter? Make them prescription? I don't think we should.
“I think most Americans would like to leave those decisions as private decisions, and decisions within the family.”
Plan B’s manufacturer, Barr Pharmaceuticals, submitted a new application to the FDA with an age cut-off, so that girls 16 and younger would still need a prescription to get the drug. This seemed to address Hager’s objections and those of the anti-abortion rights lobby.
But last August, then-FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford surprised just about everyone when he announced that the agency had postponed a decision on the new application for what could be months or years. He took the unprecedented step of overruling his own scientific staff.
“I think the Plan B decision to cut the scientists out is sort of a poster child of this concern about science and politics,” says Wood.
She’s talking about fears that religious forces are hijacking government decision-making. Wood was so outraged by the FDA postponement that she promptly resigned as director of the Office of Women’s Health in protest.
“What I saw was the science being ignored. That the scientific and medical staff (was) being cut out of decision making,” says Wood.
In fact, according to a government investigation, top FDA officials had decided to reject Plan B’s over the counter application months before the scientific staff completed its review.
Was there pressure from the White House? The investigators said they couldn’t find out because e-mails and documents relating to the matter were destroyed.
As for Plan B as an over-the-counter drug, nobody knows when a decision on that will be made.
has gone out of its way to be FAIR to everyone (including Republicans), right down to Eric Holder (the Attorney General) taking a look at Republican Ted Stevens' case (prosecuted under the Bush administration) and dismissing the charges against this REPUBLICAN because of mistakes made by the Bush administration.
They're trying to reach out to everyone, but most Repubicans and their followers are returning his outstretched hand of conciliation with a clenched fist.
This is truly sad and does nothing to help strengthen our country. What is comforting is that the "party of no" and their followers represent the minority of Americans.
By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, October 21, 2005; 1:00 PM
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has just launched his own brand-new Web site.
Could it be that he's getting ready to release some new legal documents? Like, maybe, some indictments? It's certainly not the action of an office about to fold up its tents and go home.
Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn minimized the significance of the Web launch in an interview this morning.
I would strongly caution, Dan, against reading anything into it substantive, one way or the other, he said. It's really a long overdue effort to get something on the Internet to answer a lot of questions that we get . . . and to put up some of the documents that we have had ongoing and continued interest in having the public be able to access.
OK, OK. But will the Web site be used for future documents as well?
The possibility exists, Samborn said.
Among the documents currently available on the site:
* The December 30, 2003, memo from then-acting attorney general James B. Comey establishing Fitzgerald as an independent special counsel with all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity.
* A Feb. 6, 2004, follow-up confirming that his mandate includes the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation.
The Web site is bare bones and is still a work in progress, Samborn said. We have some document formatting issues that we're still resolving. As a result, the site has not yet been officially announced -- although there is a link from Fitzgerald's home page as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
Up until now, the only official repository for documents related to the special counsel's investigation had been a page on the U.S. District Court's Web site. But it only included court motions and rulings.
Incidentally, if you call the number the new Web site lists for Fitzgerald's D.C. office, the phone is somewhat mysteriously answered counterespionage section.
But as Samborn explained to me, that's because the special prosecutor is borrowing space in the Justice Department's Bond Building from the counterespionage section. The office of special counsel doesn't really have its own dedicated space, he said.
I assume you watched both conventions????? I watched the Dems and now I'm watching the Pubs. I am an INDEPENDENT. I would support Obama were it not for my research of the church he has been associated with for 20 years. This church, in my humble opinion, belongs to an extreme, radical, racist group. We don't need that in the White House. With the exception of illegal immigration, he pretty much addressed all the things that I feel are important to the future of my children and grandchildren and were it not for his affiliation with his chosen church, I would probably vote for him. . At least he had the good sense to select a person as his running mate who actually might be "ready on day one" to lead this country.
Secondly, again in my humble opinion, McCain has a few screws loose rattling around upstairs. He answers every question, even about how many houses he owns, with something like, "well, the longest time I spent anywhere was when I was a POW." Other than that it has been all about bashing Obama and his not having "experience." Then look what he did. Picked a little-known female who has been abroad exactly once and tries to pass her off as "experienced." Truth: She is a female and her state is the second largest producer of oil. Bush governed the biggest oil producing state. Enjoying those prices at the pumps? To this point all the pub speakers have pushed McCain's war record. What????? Do we need more war? I think a peacemaker would be better.
Now, before anyone pounces on me, I support NEITHER of these candidates and NEITHER will receive my vote. Either way, the middle class Americans, to which I expect most MTs belong, lose. Our government will change when and if the majority of Americans quit using their heads as a hatrack for the Democrat and Republican parties, kick them out and bring back government "of the people, by the people and for the people." Won't happen this time but maybe next time won't be too late.
First of all, let me say I was undecided on this election until yesterday. Obama's tax plan scares me to death. I heard him on an interview yesterday, and he said that the top 5% of the country could *afford to help out those less fortunate to us*, meaning those that make above $200,000. He also said that someone making under $45,000 would *probably* not have to pay income taxes, because all the tax revenue would be generated from the top 5% of the country, again, who could *afford* to help out his fellow man.
So, here's my question. If I work my BUTT off making a great living for my family, who the heck is he to say I have to share it? My husband and I put ourselves through school to get a good education for ourselves, searched for good jobs, worked more than one sometimes, and enjoy or standard of living, because we worked hard for it and EARNED it. How dare he suggest that I have to share that with ANYONE, just because they dont' have as much. We give to quite a few neighborhood organizations and national charities, we do not keep every penny for ourselves.
If he does get elected and puts this new plan in place, why would people work hard to make a good living if quite a bit chunk of it is going to be taken away? Why not just sit back, work as little as you want, stay under that $40,000 radar, not pay income taxes, and have the government give you some other *rich* guy's money because you don't have as much?
This really made my mind up for me. It's time this county taught some personal responsibility and accountability, and I do not think he is the one for the job!
I haven't been here for a while, and if this has already been posted below somewhere, I apologize for duplicating it.
The following link will take you to a site that will show you how much money Barack Obama will save you on taxes, compared to John McCain. (Remember, McCain will be taxing your health insurance benefits for the first time in American history.) Depending on your income, there is quite a difference between the two plans.
Mrs. Palin proudly boasted that she had put her state's "checkbook" on line so the fine Alaskan citizens could actually see where their money was being spent. Bless her heart. She said under the Palin/McCain (yep, in that order) administration, she would do the same with the federal "checkbook."
Come to find out that Obama had already done that 2 to 3 years ago. He should be ashamed of stealing her idea.
What he hasn't bothered to tell all his lame followers is if he allows the Bush tax cuts to expire in a few years, this is equal to a tax increase on the middle class. Obama knows most of his followers don't even know what the real Bush tax cuts mean nor what it will mean for them when and if they are allowed to expire.
He hopes no one looks too closely at this. Not only does he want that to expire, which he has already said he will not vote to continue, back in March he actually tried to shorten that so taxes could begin for those making 31k-63K. He knows most of you don't understand any of this for obvious reasons but for those of us who do pay attention, wake up! You will not be getting off the hook paying taxes no matter how much that sounds wonderful. If it sounds too good to be true, it will be.
McCain has a plan...just like Obama has one....
read about it on his website. And if you didn't turn off the TV every time he spoke, you would know he has a plan. LOL. What I don't want is the last TWO years, when the Democrats sat on their hands and did nothing while Freddie/Fannie ruined the economy. What I DON'T want is a socialist President and a democratic majority, and I will have NO part in bringing that about. For the first time in my LIFE I am voting a straight republican ticket.
Sam....if you keep repeating the Obama tax plan.........sm
about how he is going to eliminate taxes for the lower income class, I may just have to switch camps and vote for him!
Obama tax plan question...(sm)
Obama's plan very clearly states that taxes will be raised on those making over 250,000 and tax cuts for those under that. Meanwhile I've seen post after post complaining about him rasing taxes in general, which is in direct conflict with what he has said.
So, if he's planning on raising taxes on the higher tax brackets what's the problem? Aren't these the same people you guys have been bashing? For example, the auto CEOs who went to Washington in a private jet?
Obama's plan is not based on
The government will not be "in charge" of anything excep ACCESS to a healthcare coverage plan. It will still be private companies and if you don't want the national plan, you do not have to join it....keep your own if you like. Read the plan. All he is proposing is to open up the current plan that now covers Congress, Senate and federal employees to citizens. That plan is like any other. It has several different deductible schemes, choices of levels of coverage (PPO/HMO) and a range of premium amounts. All O is trying to do is make health care available to all Americans at affordable prices.
Obama's economic plan
Number one, thanks for a thoughtful, relevant topic.
Number two, Obama's plan starts with rolling back the tax breaks for the wealthy that the Bush administration enacted to pre-Bush status and not make them permanent. A big step in the right direction would also be to tax the stratospheric earnings of equity-fund managers as income at 35% rather than as capital gains at 15% (they can surely afford it) and penalize them for moving their funds offshore.
Number three, all bets are off the table in light of the current GLOBAL economic crisis. The Obama administration will be so busy putting out fires they didn't start that it'll be difficult to enact any long-term or short-term economic plan. I know healthcare is a sore subject, but it's a potentially huge stimulus for middle-class folks, and huge stimuli are needed in times of severe GLOBAL recession.
Obama did not plan the mission.
He only signed off on it after it had been planned and then vouched for by a whole lot of other people. The CEO of a car company does not design a car or put together a sales campaign. He only gives the go-ahead after others have figured out what to do, then takes credit for it.
The only thing this guy has ever made in his life is reservations.
Obama's tax cut plan for middle class
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/#tax-relief
Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
Obama will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.
• Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
• Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000: Barack Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This proposal will eliminate income taxes for 7 million seniors and provide these seniors with an average savings of $1,400 each year. Under the Obama plan, 27 million American seniors will also not need to file an income tax return.
• Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees. Obama is saying the same thing and he has no grand plan...
either than he has shared. He said it in the O'Reilly interview. O'Reilly asked him if he would invade Pakistan to get him and he would not say yay or nay.
So, following your logic...thumbs down on you, O?
Obama's plan will KILL our economy. You think
nm
I suggest YOU study up on Obama's plan...sm
and see if his plan remotely resembles national healthcare in other countries. All plans are not created equal.
Does Obama's healthcare plan require
everyone to participate. My husband is a state employee with family coverage for $17.00 per pay. We have excellent medical, dental, vision and prescription coverage. I am not interested in changing that. Does Obama want to provide the same coverage for everyone or just provide coverage for those without?
Those prices are OUTRAGEOUS! Bad plan, Obama!
According to the table on the website you linked, in my state their insurance would cost nearly $800 a month! Holy KRAP, Batman! I pay a little over a quarter of that.
So Obama thinks some welfare family should get an $800/mo policy for free and I, because I can afford my own inrance, have to pay for lesser coverage.
So Obama believes we should spread the wealth around. Here are his charitable contributions:
Too bad he wasn't spreading his wealth around these past years. Oh well he did give 800,000.00 to ACORN. You know them don't you? Do you suppose this is his idea of spreading the wealth?
That's okay if you think it is garbage. It really is of no concern to me. However, it would seem to me that an Obamabot has finally grown a spine and come clean, knowing what Obama's victory would do to our country.
Anyway, found this story again this morning on Fox, and very hard to find the "whole story" elsewhere on the web, as some of it has "been scrubbed clean"
Obama to Plumber: My Plan Will 'Spread the Wealth Around'
Barack Obama tells a plumber in Ohio he wants to "spread the wealth around," eliciting criticism that his economic recovery plan is socialist in nature.
FOXNews.com
Monday, October 13, 2008
Barack Obama told a tax-burdened plumber over the weekend that his economic philosophy is to "spread the wealth around" -- a comment that may only draw fire from riled-up John McCain supporters who have taken to calling Obama a "socialist" at the Republican's rallies.
Obama made the remark, caught on camera, after fielding some tough questions from the plumber Sunday in Ohio, where the Democratic candidate canvassed neighborhoods and encouraged residents to vote early.
"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed "more and more for fulfilling the American dream."
"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Obama's remarks drew fresh criticism on the blogosphere that the Illinois senator favors a breed of wealth redistribution -- as well as a rebuke from the McCain campaign.
"If Barack Obama's goal as President is to 'spread the wealth around,' perhaps his unconditional meetings with Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and Kim Jong-Il aren't so crazy -- if nothing else they can advise an Obama administration on economic policy," McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said in a written statement to FOXNews.com. "In contrast, John McCain's goal as president will be to let the American people prosper unburdened by government and ever higher taxes."
Obama frequently rails against what he calls a Republican concept that tax breaks for the wealthy will somehow "trickle down" to middle-class Americans.
Obama says he will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
However, McCain's aides and supporters argue that Obama wrongly wants to raise taxes on businesses in a time of economic distress.
Both candidates spent Monday discussing how they would resurrect the ailing economy. McCain again pointed to his plan to buy up cumbersome mortgages from homeowners and renegotiate them. Obama unveiled what he called an economic rescue plan for the middle class, which included a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures.
In the absence of a direct response from the bankrupt McCain campaign, dems better take cover and ride out the next avalanche of hate speech that looms on the horizon.
As you read the piece (see link below) in the London Times, substitute "Obama" for Brown, and "Geithner" for "Darling". Then multiply the billions in pounds by 1.5 to change them to US dollars. You'll think you're reading about the US plan - and the same catastrophic results, among which the worst are:
1. A burden on future generations of unparalleled and unprincipled proportions.
2. An outflow of investment capital to other countries that do not penalize the engines of the economy.
What struck me about Brown's plan was his "soak the rich" approach, which exactly mirrors Obama's - i.e., hitting the "upper 2%" of the "wealthy". It is more than passing strange to me that this is the precise percentage that Obama proposes - and is equally doubtful. Given Brown's recent meetings with Obama, no one will ever convince me that he didn't get some tutoring from our superclown...er, I mean, superpresident.
Another thing that's striking is how Brown's proposals are structured so that the real pain will be imposed after the elections in GB next year. In Obama's case, most of the real pain has also been scheduled for the "out years" - meaning that the public won't begin to feel them until beyond 2011.
And finally, there is the criticism that Brown's program is based on a lot of rosy "recovery" predictions which are very doubtful. Exactly the same criticism has been leveled at Obama's program, and in our case the criticism has come not from the opposition party but from within the government itself, i.e. the Office of Management and Budget - which is considered to be a very credible source of information on this sort of thing
Cut and paste, or follow the link at the bottom: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6168950.ece?Submitted=true
Fred Jackson - OneNewsNow.com - 11/3/2008 7:35:00 AM
The nation's coal industry is in shock today with word that Barack Obama plans to put such severe penalties on coal-fired power plants that it will bankrupt them. A coalition of business leaders says such a move would jeopardize the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people who work in the coal industry.
Senator Obama's plan for putting severe financial penalties on coal-fired power plants has been made public on a YouTube video which contains audio of comments he made in San Francisco in January 2008.
"What I've said is that we would put a cap-and-trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there," the Democratic presidential candidate said. "I was the first to call for a hundred-percent auction on the cap-and-trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases that was emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year.
"So if somebody wants to build a coal power plant, they can," Obama concluded. "It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greeenhouse gas that's being emitted."
A press release from the Western Business Roundtable is calling on politicians of all stripes to denounce such a plan, and encouraging voters to hold those politicans accountable for whether they support the coal industry.
I see again that everyone is talking about President Obama's plan for universal health care and I once again feel the need to distinguish between universal health care and what the plan is that President Obama has campaigned for. I have copied and pasted part of the web page, but also included the link at the bottom of this for you to see the whole plan.
President Obama does not ask for universal health care where the government is in charge - he just wants the government to ensure that everyone has access to medical care and health insurance. Why is it so difficult to understand that this is not socialized medicine, government run healthcare, or universal coverage plans?
Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan
On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes - government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that’s why they’ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.
The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors and plans to implement the plan. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.
Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year.
If you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
We are forwarding this information about hurricanehousing.org - it was assembled by the progessive people of moveon.org and has been publicized by local mainstream media. While we are unspeakably upset by the lack of timely federal emergency aid, we are gratified by grassroots caring and hope that this disaster will serve as a moral reawakening beyond its terrible pain and loss. Please consider the following....
We're sure you've seen the horrifying images on TV of destruction left by Hurricane Katrina, and the many, many people left with nowhere to go.
You can help. MoveOn.org just launched a website, www.hurricanehousing.org, to connect your empty beds with hurricane victims who desperately need a place to wait out the storm.
You can post your offer of housing (a spare room, extra bed, even a decent couch) on http://www.hurricanehousing.org or search there for housing if you need it.
MoveOn will pass requests from hurricane victims or relief agencies on to volunteer hosts, who can decide whether or not to respond to a particular request. The host remains anonymous until they reply to someone looking for housing.
The ______(this was my brother's name) just posted an offer. We hope you will too, or pass this on to people you know in the Southeast:
marks the location of current message within thread
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