In-A-Gadda-Levitre

If the guy had been honest, maybe said it more in a hypothetical way, like "hey, I'm just a plumber, but what if I wanted to buy out my boss and later on, grow the business, then how would your plan....?" But he didn't, he lied and misrepresented himself. John McCain's campaign chose to incorporate this guy as a major component of their message. So they made a big deal about him. They didn't check him out, because if they did, major red flags would've been raised. Why wouldn't the media want to know who he was? The campaign might as well have told the media to check him out by running with his message, and when things started smelling funny, they did their job and asked more questions. It's basic investigative journalism. That's what the media does, and we want and expect them to do that. When the experts look back on this election and try to understand what went wrong with McCain's campaign, this will be a common theme - they made decisions along the way without understanding the ramifications or doing the legwork that would have prevented so many missteps.

since you don't appear to live in the USA, you're given a pass on what was brought up and what wasn't. There was strong backlash by the media against the Bush administration regarding false or misleading information that was given as the justification for the invasion of Iraq.

as SAGE said, they will vote them out. I also think Americans will protest, provide activist groups lots of opportunities to send strong grassroot messages to congress and the white house, and other ways to demonstrate their disappointment with Washington's (potential) lack of duty to the constituents to whom they were elected to serve. What would I do? Call and write my elected officials, sign petitions that I think would be appropriate to support, maybe volunteer with activist groups, as well as look for alternative candidates that I hope would do a better job. There's no excuses; just belief in a candidate whom I think will bring about the right kind of change. If he doesn't, then I don't help to re-elect him.

what he said...

doesn't scare me. A lot of people (I think including yourself) have bashed the 2006-onward congress for their low approval ratings, how they couldn't do this, and couldn't do that... I believe the reason is that all too often, the GOP congressmen and women blindly supported their president and in doing so, stirred up partisanship, defeated proposed legislation, and basically made it impossible for the majority to be effective. Clearly there were screwups by the dem leadership and various committees, pork served up by the billions, and lots of blame all around. Neither party is without some responsibility over the last couple years. Here is an opportunity to give the congress support in the White House, and a larger majority, so now we'll see what they can do. If they mess up (as I'm sure you're absolutely convinced that they will), then let the chips fall as they may. I believe the American people will send a clear message if that occurs.

all us mamby-pamby Obama weenies are gonna cry foul? over what, a landslide victory in the White House and Congress? celebrate? you betcha!

I'm not saying this is a good idea or a bad one. I just feel this ridiculous need to inform idjits that distort positions, take soundbites from partisan sources and billboard them, or to inform people that simply don't understand the issue (mostly because they never even bother to), etc. One of my many faults. I do think that focusing on the heavy hitters in greenhouse gases makes sense, but until we see real numbers, nobody knows what the actual impact will be. So, it's ridiculous to start forecasting, hence my response to Fingon... I also agree that ultimately the bulk of the cost will be passed on to consumers. You probably don't agree with Obama's positions on a lot of things, but he's a pretty smart guy. There's no way he's going to allow an entire industry, like preventing any new electricity generation from coal-fired plants, to go down the tubes without some reasonable alternative strategy in place.

because you don't know how much nor even when prices might increase and utilities don't go out of business. Nobody knows what carbon caps will cost on existing plants, nor what utilities could do at that time to reduce emissions. PS: Barack Obama didn't say he wanted to put coal power plants out of business. He said new plants using existing methodologies could go bankrupt.

that's a ridiculous prediction. nobody knows how much and when any electricity rate increase will occur, and since both candidates support cap and trade, we're DOOMED either way

because they're making fun of Palin and that proves they're in the tank for Obama, at least according to Fox News...

I will admit, I never even heard of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument before reading this. A couple of things come out for me... It sounds like this is a spectacular area, from a visual and historic standpoint. I've been to Bryce Canyon and it's totally amazing to see, so I'm not surprised that it's been protected from development. However, if even part of the allegations are true, what Clinton did to help his friends is disgusting to say the least. The world is a different place than it was in 1996, and just maybe the mining restriction could be revisited. Much like many people are now in favor of offshore drilling that weren't in the past. I'm not a fan of Bill Clinton. He did some good things, he was in the right place at the right time from an economic standpoint (mostly the dotcom boom), but many of his choices were really bad. The pardons at the end of his administration come to mind. So, I'm not surprised at all that he might have made a sweetheart deal with cronies.

at least you could've trolled about cell phones and polling. how about Obama is secretly transmitting liberal propaganda into our cell phones, convincing us to pay welfare to those that don't have have cell phones or that commie fraud Obama is gonna redistribute our cell phone minutes to pre-paid subscribers! or even Obama (that fraud) is going to make Barney Frank the Secretary of Mobile Telephony and he will mandate all new phones come in pink.

While coal fired electricity plants are the largest consumer of coal, they aren't the only ones. Coke to make steel, exports, etc. are some of them. Secondly, he didn't say, or even hint about getting rid of coal. What he said was "if someone wants to build a plant.." That means new plants that are not already in service will pay a high cap. It's much like pollution requirements on cars that were mandated starting in the 1970s; new cars had strict requirements to lower emissions and older cars were grandfathered in with lesser restrictions. Existing plants will still pay a cap, but a smaller one. If we want to start making progress on climate change, we absolutely have to focus on the heaviest emitters of greenhouse gases, which are the coal-fired power plants. It will force development in clean coal technologies like carbon capture and storage, as well as alternative energy sources and nuclear power plants. If we can develop clean coal and other alternatives through innovation, we make significant progress on energy independence and start reducing greenhouse gases at the same time. Will the cost of electricity go up? Most likely, but we have to start getting serious about climate change, and the only way to do that is to begin with the biggest offenders.

ok, here's the real deal... The polling software chooses landline numbers at random and dials them. Laws prevent random dialing of cell phones, so most polls don't call cell phones because of the cost of manual dialing. But some do, obviously from your 538 collection.

I read the real reason is that the polls run on automated dialing software that only works on landlines and for some reason cannot call cell phones from the automated scripts, so cellphones must be dialed manually. This article said only the ABC News/WaPo Poll did this manual dialing, hence they were usually showing a bigger advantage for Obama vis a vis younger voters that only had cellphones. I can probably find that article if you're interested...

Obama's quote is not about the coal industry; it is about the utility that operates the coal-fired power plant. He is saying it will cost more to operate the plant and pay the carbon dioxide emissions "cap" that it will generate in revenue from electricity. I listened to that recording a couple times and while it isn't real clear, what he is saying is that, rather than taking coal off the table, he is supporting coal if technology allows it to be burned without being a heavy emitter of pollutants, aka clean coal. This has always been his position, but I agree that it doesn't jump out at you from that tape.

I think Mr Biden is struggling with his personal issues against coal which he has stated a lot in the past and the fact that he now has to support clean coal as part of Obama's platform. So he slips at times and says dumb things that the press and republicans pounce on...

you're right, nothing wrong with that, and he's taken some heat from environmentalists for his position on coal. He's in favor of nuclear power, but doesn't see it as the silver bullet for solving the energy problems. IMO, nuclear power is cheap and clean. The problem is getting rid of the spent fuel. It's probably the biggest NIMBY issue in the country. There used to be a deal for Russia to take a bunch of it off our hands, but that got killed, maybe because of Georgia, not sure...

you're a piece of work... read the stuff that led to that soundbite he was talking about volunteer community service corps, not paramilitary! if you bothered to listen to the coal link, he said it would bankrupt the plant because of the emissions cost, not the coal industry, and McCain supports the same type of cap and trade system, so there goes that argument :wallbash: and like elegantelliotoffen said, Search before you put up duplicate threads

it could involve chemical cleaning of the coal, using steam to remove sulfur dioxide from the flue gases, or carbon capture and storage to scrub CO2 from the smokestack. That totally changes the emission characteristics of coal burning plants, but (so far) costs big bucks. Obama wants to invest in this stuff to make it more cost effective.

he is in favor of clean coal technology, do you even have a clue of what that means?

same link as your comrade Nanker, does posting it twice make it more right?

he said the cost of operating a coal powered plant would bankrupt them (the plant) because the amount of emissions would cost big bucks. Not the coal industry and that's pretty much true of ANY cap and trade system, which, oh by the way, McCain supports. the reason is that coal fired power plants are the primary emitter of greenhouse gases, besides the millions of automobiles. but nice try on the propaganda

as KarlFromEarthCrisis pointed out, it is ridiculous to take a 20 second soundbite and assume you understand what he meant. he was talking about volunteer service corps, not paramilitary groups! You might not like the terms "national security force" to describe these programs, and you also might wonder (quite appropriately) how he's gonna pay for them, but at least deal with the facts, not a soundbite...

I guess factchecker and TPC swallowed the same junk. As much as I don't like McCain and his campaign, I don't profess to know how he might change in the future, so I can only go by what he says today. The same with Obama. The dems don't have an exclusive on changing strategies due to economic or political realities. enjoy your wack job, but clean up after...