WP: HHS Withholds Funds for Global Meeting

[Southpaw Bookworm]

After complaints from Republican congressional staff members and conservative groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition, Bush administration officials have decided to withhold money for an international health conference that opponents say promotes abortion.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Global Health Council over the past few years, backed off plans to contribute $170,000 for the June conference because it appeared the money could be used for lobbying, HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said.

Conservative activists, however, took credit last night for persuading the administration to abandon a conference the federal government has supported for 30 years.

"Obviously this conference does not reflect the administration policies," said Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition. Initial reports that the liberal MoveOn.org would participate demonstrated a "clearly political agenda" that was not "in sync" with the Republican administration, she added.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44652-2004Apr26.html

[librechik]

1. we've been hijacked

is there anybody who can save us from these bold criminals?

[Southpaw Bookworm]

2. Hope for a Dem election in November?

If we don't win this one (or whether we are prevented from winning it, an tinfoil hat sort of thought), I am truly terrifed about what will transpire. These people will have four more years to install their fundamentalist, misogynist, anti-poor theocracy.

[damnraddem]

4. Do you really think that they would have the whole four years before ...

they managed to destroy the earth?

[Southpaw Bookworm]

6. Of course not. I'd give it until January. n/t

[damnraddem]

3. I wonder: having witihdrawn from the global community,

will the Bushistas next try to withdraw the U.S. from the globe itself?

[Joanne98]

5. The fundies did this. They're everywhere.

n/t