A coalition of anti-abortion groups is set to open a new front against Democrats’ efforts to restructure American health care, claiming the plans open a back door to publicly financed abortions.
The groups, which are launching a broad campaign on the issue this week, claim that existing health care proposals constitute a stealth “abortion mandate” that will spend taxpayer money on abortions and require insurance companies to cover abortions — allegations that health care reform supporters call misleading.
“President Obama keeps on talking about common ground, and there is really, really common ground on funding issues,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, the group organizing the planned three-week campaign on the issue. “Almost no one wants to fund abortion, regardless of their position on abortion as a whole.”
Yoest’s group plans to release a letter to Barack Obama on Thursday in which it cites, according to its reading of proposed legislation, “our belief that the bills are intended to include abortion.”
The noisy, contentious health care debate — which has grown pointedly acrimonious in recent days — has proceeded largely without reference to abortion. But the decision of these high-profile conservative groups to launch the new campaign under the rubric “Stop the Abortion Mandate” may change that and provide a new obstacle to the reform legislation.
The leaders involved include Christian conservatives such as James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins; and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Dr. Richard Land, who will be launching the push in a webcast Thursday evening.
“We just realized how urgent the situation was, what was at stake,” said David Bereit, the national director of 40 Days for Life, another group involved in the campaign, which will focus on generating pressure on members of Congress to insist on an explicit ban on abortion within the legislation.
Nineteen anti-abortion House Democrats last month wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to say they’d oppose any bill that would “mandate coverage for abortions, directly or indirectly.”
The groups are demanding that legislation formally exclude abortion, much as the Hyde Amendment bars Medicaid and federal employee health care plans from covering abortions, which many private plans currently cover.
The validity of the groups’ concerns, however, remains as uncertain as the final shape of the plans themselves. One issue is that under the leading Democratic alternatives, an independent panel of medical experts would establish a basic package of procedures that insurers would be required to cover. Abortion foes fear this will include abortion.
Abortion-rights advocates, however, say that although they think abortion should be in a basic package, they think it’s unlikely to wind up in the final array of covered procedures. “Abortion is not mandated any more than any other service or procedure in health reform. It would be left to the insurance companies to decide whether or not they want to offer it, which is the same as under current law,” said Laurie Rubiner, vice president for public policy and advocacy at Planned Parenthood. 
A group of Democratic legislators sought Tuesday night to shape a compromise measure with an amendment say that abortion coverage could not be mandated as a part of insurance plans, but that insurance companies also couldn’t be prohibited from offering that coverage if they chose to.
"We clearly don't want any federal funding for abortions," said Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), the lead author of a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi proposing the measure, which is unlikely to satisfy conservatives. "I think this is where both sides can come together." 
The groups’ second complaint is that the new wave of subsidies for vast numbers of Americans’ health insurance would mean that, for some of them, taxpayer money would finance abortions. This appears likely to be the case if a far larger share of Americans receives federal subsidies for at least part of their health insurance.
On “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend, budget director Peter Orszag said he is “not prepared to rule ... out” taxpayer financing for abortions.
Planned Parenthood’s Rubiner said the alternative would be slashing benefits for millions of women who currently have coverage for abortions and cited polling suggesting such services have popular support.
The anti-abortion activists’ demand “violates the first principle of health care reform, which is: Don’t make people worse off under health care reform than they are today,” she said.
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) –
Bombs exploded across Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 16 people and wounding dozens, two of the blasts striking the crowded Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, security officials said.

In Iraq's usually quiet Anbar province, the country's largest, a rare two-day vehicle ban was imposed across the vast desert region after bombings in the provincial capital Ramadi.

The first Sadr City bomb, apparently targeting day laborers, killed four people and left 39 wounded, said Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi.

Another bomb in the same area of northeastern Baghdad killed three civilians and wounded 15. The slum was once a haven for gunmen loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but the militia has now been largely disbanded and splintered.

In Husseiniya, just north of Baghdad, a series of blasts in a popular market killed five people and wounded 28, police said.

U.S. combat troops pulled out of Iraqi cities and towns on June 30, implementing the first stage of a security pact that requires all troops to leave by the end of 2012, raising doubts about whether Iraqi forces are ready to handle security.

A roadside bomb killed two civilians and wounded 13 others all from the same extended family as they made their way to a funeral in central Baghdad on Tuesday. And a car bomb exploded near a vegetable market, killing two civilians and wounding six others in south Baghdad's Doura district, police said.

Many Iraqis doubt whether their own forces can protect them against militants without backing from U.S. firepower.

But in an interview with Reuters on Monday, the commander of Iraqi forces in Baghdad, Major-General Abboud Qanbar, said he had not once had to call on U.S. troops now stationed on the city's outskirts to help keep security.

A major Shi'ite pilgrimage that drew millions to the Baghdad district of Khadhimiya, a favorite past target of Sunni Islamist militants, went by without any major bomb attacks over the weekend, he said.

"LAST CHANCE"

Militants are likely to step up attacks to test Iraqi security forces ahead of national elections scheduled for January, officials say. Some politicians will try to intimidate rivals or show the government is failing on security by backing militant groups who plant bombs, Qanbar said.

"This year is such an important year: it is the last chance for the enemy," he said.

"This is also an election year. Politicians will use attacks to try to gain advantage over rivals," he added.

Officials declared a state of emergency in Ramadi and police said a province-wide vehicle ban had been imposed after two bomb attacks on Tuesday. The previous day, an explosion killed two policemen.

A suicide bomber in a moving car and a bomb in a parked car detonated almost simultaneously near a group of restaurants, killing three people, police said.

During a state of emergency more police are deployed, and they conduct greater security checks.

Anbar was once overrun by Islamist militants such as al Qaeda, but a mostly Sunni Muslim anti-insurgent movement started by the province's tribal leaders in 2006 was decisive in routing them. The province has remained relatively calm since then, but has witnessed a rise in attacks in recent months.

Violence has fallen sharply across Iraq, but militant groups are still capable of carrying out frequent bomb attacks.

(Additional reporting by Tim Cocks in Baghdad and Ali al-Mashhadani in Ramadi; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Jon Boyle)

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Tuesday to halt production of the Air Force's missile-eluding F-22 Raptor fighter jets in a high-stakes showdown over President Barack Obama's efforts to shift defense spending to a new generation of smaller F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
The 58-40 vote reflected an all-out lobbying campaign by the administration, which had to overcome resistance from lawmakers confronted with the potential losses of defense-related jobs if the F-22 program was terminated.
"The president really needed to win this vote," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said. Levin said it was important not only on the merits of the planes but "in terms of changing the way we do business in Washington."
The top Republican on the committee, John McCain of Arizona, agreed that it was "a signal that we are not going to continue to build weapons systems with cost overruns which outlive their requirements for defending this nation."
Supporters of the program cited both the importance of the F-22 to U.S. security interests — pointing out that China and Russia are developing planes that can compete with it — and a need to protect aerospace jobs in a bad economy.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Pentagon officials have determined that production of the F-22, which has not been used in Iraq and Afghanistan, should be stopped at 187 planes in order to focus on the F-35, which would also be available to the Navy and Marine Corps.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, countered that the F-35 is designed to supplement, not replace, the F-22, "the "NASCAR racer of this air dominance team." Supporters of the F-22 have put the number needed at anywhere from 250 to 380.
The defense bill has funds to build 30 F-35s. The plane is currently being produced in small numbers for testing purposes. The single-engine plane will eventually replace the venerable F-16 and the Air Force's aging fleet of A-10s. Its primary purpose is to attack targets on the ground.
The twin-engine F-22 Raptor is a jet the Air Force would use for air-to-air combat missions.
McCain said the voting margin of victory was "directly attributable" to Obama, his opponent in the last presidential election, and Gates, who has pushed for termination of the F-22 and other weapons systems he says have outlived their usefulness.
The vote removed $1.75 billion set aside in a $680 billion defense policy bill to build seven more F-22 Raptors, adding to the 187 stealth technology fighters already built or being built.
The Senate action also saved Obama from what could have been a political embarrassment. He had urged the Senate to strip out the money and threatened what would have been the first veto of his presidency if the F-22 money remained.
Immediately after the vote, Obama told reporters at the White House the Senate's decision would "better protect our troops."
White House officials said Vice President Joe Biden and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel lobbied senators, as did Gates.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that spending on the stealth fighter would "inhibit our ability to buy things we do need," including Gates' proposal to add 22,000 soldiers to the Army.
"I've never seen the White House lobby like they've lobbied on this issue," said Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, an F-22 supporter whose state would be hit hard by a production shutdown.
According to Lockheed Martin Corp., the main contractor for both planes, 25,000 people are directly employed in building the F-22, and an additional 70,000 have indirect links, particularly in Georgia, Texas and California.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., a strong backer of the program, said his state stood to lose 2,000 to 4,000 jobs if F-22 production ended.

Levin suggested that some workers might be shifted to F-35 production. "We have to find places for people who are losing their jobs," he said.

The House last month approved its version of the defense bill with a $369 million down payment for 12 additional F-22 fighters. The House Appropriations Committee last week endorsed that spending in drawing up its Pentagon budget for next year. It also approved $534 million for an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, another program that Obama, backed by the Pentagon, says is unwarranted and would subject the entire bill to a veto.

The defense bill authorizes $550 billion for defense programs and $130 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other anti-terrorist operations.

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The defense bill is S. 1390.

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On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov

IPOD Speaker System

A loudspeaker, speaker, or speaker system is an electromechanical transducer that converts an electrical signal to sound. The term loudspeaker can refer to individual transducer devices (otherwise known as drivers), or to complete systems consisting of an enclosure incorporating one or more drivers and electrical filter components. Loudspeakers, just as with other electro-acoustic transducers, are the most variable elements in an audio system and are responsible for the greatest degree of audible differences between sound systems.

The suspension system keeps the coil centered in the gap and provides a restoring force to make the speaker cone return to a neutral position after moving. A typical suspension system consists of two parts: the "spider", which connects the diaphragm or voice coil to the frame and provides the majority of the restoring force; and the "surround", which helps center the coil/cone assembly and allows free pistonic motion aligned with the magnetic gap.