The American oil industry, working with a coalition of business interests, plans to manufacture rallies in opposition to clean energy reform, an internal document reveals. According to the plan acquired by Greenpeace, the American Petroleum Institute (API) will “coordinate transportation” for oil industry employees to “Energy Citizen” rallies targeting U.S. Senators in 21 states. The document’s author, API president Jack Gerard, discusses how it is “important that our views” supplant “constituents’ views”:

The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at those states’ U.S. Senators to avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill and the Obama Administration’s tax increases on our industry. Senate Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid reportedly has pushed back consideration of climate legislation to late September to allow Senators time to get their constituents’ views during the August recess. It’s important that our views be heard.

API’s membership, which includes ExxonMobil, GE, and Halliburton, will join “allies from a broad range of interests: the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturing, the trucking industry, the agricultural sector, small business, and many others” to create these Astroturf rallies to protect their dirty energy profits at the expense of the planet.

Yet another prominent Republican has endorsed former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s astonishingly false claim, which she doubled down on today, that health care reform will lead to “death panels.” At the “GOPAC” political action committee convention in Illinois today, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said that though there are no “death panels” in any legislation, they would probably happen any way:

While the health care reform bill passed by the U.S. House may not spell out “death panels,” Giuliani said simple economics hint to him that the panels would happen under the plan.

“President Obama says he will cover 30 to 40 to 50 million people who are not covered now — without it costing any money,” Giuliani said. “This is absurd. Health care — in case the Obama Administration hasn’t noticed, is very expensive. They will have to cut other services, cut programs. They will have to be making decisions about people who are elderly.”

Pressed on whether he himself believed the legislation calls for “death panels” to recommend hospice instead of treatment for the elderly, Giuliani said, “The only way in which you can save money the way the president and the House claims is by reducing care. So it is natural that some people would believe, particularly since they have these provisions for end-of-life decision-making councils, that it is natural that people would suggest that one of the ways you would do that is to cut off care for the elderly. Whether they will do that or not I don’t know. … People assume these Death Panels will be created. They [Democratic legislators] have created that suggestion in the ambiguity of the legislation.”

There are no “end-of-life decision-making councils” in any of the legislation in Congress. The only end-of-life provisions is in the House bill and it would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. Additionally, the Senate Finance Committee has ruled out any such provisions.

Speaking after a panel discussion at the Naperville Chamber of Commerce panel yesterday, Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) denounced the disruptions at congressional town halls over the August recess. “What bothers me the most about this is we do have some people that out there want to make political games out of this or make a circus and destroy some of these meetings,” said Biggert. Watch it:

But Biggert engaged in her own “political games” at the meeting, handing out an info sheet warning that benign end-of-life counseling provisions in the House health care plan “might encourage” seniors “to give up when facing a serious illness“:

But on Wednesday she also handed out an information sheet that warned President Barack Obama’s government-run insurance plan “requires end-of-life counseling for seniors that might encourage them to give up when facing a serious illness.”

Asked about the accuracy of suggesting the plan could require older Americans to be counseled against lifesaving care, Biggert conceded the statement was “a little inflammatory.”

“I probably wrote it when I was mad,” she said.

Claiming that she was “not talking that there is euthanasia or anything,” Biggert claimed that she worried seniors would be told to go off and die:

Biggert said that while her flier was a bit over the top, she understands why seniors are scared.

“To me I thought that was inflamatory,” the 71-year-old said of the provision. “I picture myself going out into the forest and sitting there like the tribes used to do or getting on an iceberg and floating away.”

Biggert continued, “I think that is something that is between me and whoever … whether it is my doctor or my conscience or whatever.”

On the defensive over the false claims in the flier, Biggert claimed that she was “not trying to upset” seniors and assured a reporter from the Chicago Daily Herald that she did not hand out the fliers at the senior centers she recently visited.

In an interview today with The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein former DNC Chair and presidential candidate Howard Dean warned that Democratic lawmakers who oppose the creation of a new public health insurance plan in health care legislation will face primary elections:

“I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn’t pass with a public option,” Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post.

The former Vermont governor added the caveat that he thought “cooler heads” would ultimately prevail and that a government run option for insurance coverage would be passed. But his remarks are some of the most threatening yet to be directed at Democrats from within the party.

Dean, who is a keynote speaker at the Netroots Nation conference at Pittsburgh this week, said he was “in favor” of holding recalcitrant senators and congressman accountable on health care related issues.

As Dean has said before, health care reform “rises and falls” based on the inclusion of a Medicare-like public option — which the public overwhelmingly supports. Openleft is currently maintaining a whip count on where Senators stand on the public option.

The AP reports that the Secret Service “is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading ‘Death to Obama’ outside a town hall meeting” held by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD). yesterday. The protester’s sign also declared, “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.” The detention of the unidentified, 51-year-old man by local police comes on the heels of two Democratic members of Congress reporting that they received faxes to their offices featuring pictures of Obama accompanied by the phrase, “Death to All Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!”