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Deb Saunders
Debra J. Saunders
16 Feb 2012
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Bankrupt with the Facts

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The blog headline read: "Obama Tells SF Chronicle He Will Bankrupt Coal Industry" and the author charged that the audio of the meeting with Obama "(had) been hidden from the public."

One problem: The charge is utter crap. Far from hiding the meeting, the Chronicle posted audio and video of Barack Obama's meeting with the editorial board on Jan. 17, 2008.

And Obama did not say that he will bankrupt the coal industry. To the contrary, he said, "this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion." He then explained that he believed in setting emission limits, and letting industry — including coal — figure out how to operate within those limits. And: "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

I was in the room and my ears did not perk up as if Obama had issued a headline-commanding quote, when he said the above.

Why didn't the paper report on Obama's remarks? Because San Francisco is not Pennsylvania or Ohio. According to the Energy Information Administration, "Due to strict emission laws, only a few small coal-fired power plants operate in California." And a new California law prohibits utilities from entering into long-term contracts with conventional coal-fired power producers.

The Chronicle and other papers have reported that Obama's energy plan calls for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050.

That means: no new coal plants in the United States, unless some amazing new technology magically appears. Or unless there is an energy fairy.

Let me add, Obama had made similar statements in other venues. In a January debate, "We're going to cap greenhouse gases. We're going to say to every polluter that's sending greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, 'We're going to charge you a dollar — we're going to charge you money for every unit of greenhouse gas that you send out there.' That will create a market. It will generate billions of dollars that we can invest in clean technology." I assure you, coal execs weren't dancing with glee.

Sure, after a blogger uses an erroneous headline and falsely claims that the Chronicle kept the interview "hidden," the quote may seem as if it made news. But know this: It was the job of the opposition teams of both Hillary Clinton and John McCain to scrutinize every interview given by Obama word by word. Neither campaign made an issue of this interview when their candidates stumped in Ohio and Pennsylvania — and it was their job to have listened.

P.S. If you are so inclined, you can listen at www.sfgate.com/ZCGA.

E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.


Comments

3 Comments | Post Comment
Ma'am; ..The environment is still an issue, and justly so... We pay only for what we use, but not for all the damages all we use causes to us, to the environment, or to future generations... It is sad to see so many republicans unable to see anything except through a narrowly focused lens of self interest... Try to get the big picture... We all have to live here, and our children do too; and the focus of the originalists: What would the founding fathers do; does not serve us at all... I am all for coal energy, but all forms of energy should cost more so they are not wasted. Our coal is our coal, and our oil is our oil... Giving our resources over to the rich for free does not mean they are free for us, or that we are free of responsibility for their use...Every day the equivalent of the Exxon Valdese oil is spilled on America's roads... If we paid for our waste AND our use, the price would be very high... What makes anyone think we do not pay, and that some one does not pay just because we get it cheap??? Thieves are always spendthrifts... They blow what they steal, knowing they can steal more... The rich do the same thing with the lives of people... If they paid their fair price, they would not waste our hours producing trash for easy profit... Let us quit entertaining a theft mentality... Let us live here like we are going to hand it to the next generation in decent shape; and fat chance of that... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Tue Nov 4, 2008 3:58 AM
One reason we've elected this left-wing radical to the Presidency is that a lot of people who should have acted or spoken up about what they knew, instead sat on their hands and kept mum.
Take, for example, Debra J. Saunders. She is the token supposedly-conservative columnist at the S.F. Chronicle. She was in the meeting with Obama.
Ms. Saunders heard Obama say that, under his plan, if any power company tried to build a coal-fired power plant the "huge" carbon taxes would bankrupt them; and
Ms. Saunders knew that both the transcript and the audio recording of that were available; and
Ms. Saunders also heard him promise, during the debates, to promote "clean coal" technology to meet American energy needs, which she surely knew was an BLATANT LIE in light of what he had told the Chronicle; and
Ms. Saunders KEPT QUIET about it.
That's what they call a "conservative" at the San Francisco Chronicle. If she hadn't covered for Obama, it is quite possible that McCain would be our President-elect.
Dave Burton
Cary, NC
Comment: #2
Posted by: Dave Burton
Thu Nov 6, 2008 12:05 PM
For those Obama supporters who think he will bring change, take these words from Alex Jones:

"Number one, Barack Obama...he isn't going to run anything. Get that through your heads. He is traitorously going to lead this country into the gallows. We are already bleeding to death as a nation, on our knees. And they are opening announcing world government run for and by the bankers regulating you through your carbon footprint. Everything you exhale, everything you do - there's a carbon emission for almost every form of human activity. It doesn't matter that the north and south poles got 30% bigger this year. It doesn't matter if we're having record cold temperatures. It doesn't matter if the sun has cooled off and the entire solar system is freezing again, including the ice caps on Mars. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn are freezing again...they become liquid seas. They don't care. It is a world banking system where every facet of your life will be regulated, where you will have carbon credits. They will also regulate and tax all financial transactions. This is open world government. It is the New World Order. And you are preconditioned that that didn't exist, and that wasn't real, and now all these world leaders and banking leaders are openly calling for it. They are making their move and they've put a new front man in there they're calling the "President of the World" to sucker the planet into going along with it.

It's basic child psychology. They talk to you like you're children. "Oh, George Bush says global warming isn't real. He's dumb and stupid. He's from Texas." Meanwhile he signed on to it, and has actually been pushing it, and signed us on to UNESCO and endorsed it. So did John McCain. But then the left all said, "Oh well, it must be real. It must be real! You know if George Bush, says it isn't, we better be for it!" See that basic psychology, that good cop - bad cop game that they play with you.

So Democrats, you are outraged, you are angered by Patriot Act I and II, you are outraged of the phony drug war. You are outraged by the secret arrests, torture, rendition, and the wars. You are outraged by the attacks on free speech, protests and demonstrations - all of it continuing - it had nothing to do with George Bush. He was a puppet. It had nothing to do with Bill Clinton. He was a puppet. It had nothing to do with George Bush Sr. These people are front men for the social engineers. Nothing is going to CHANGE other than the fact they're going to turn the heat up even more, the height of the flame, the intensity of the flame, burning this country to bits, destroying our freedoms, decimating liberty. That's the only change. There will be no "CHANGE" in reducing and reversing tyranny, only in intensification of it, with the public confused and bamboozled into believing that they're seeing real change.

And the most dangerous sign, the most dangerous issue that we're dealing with is that - I have watched newsreels going back to the 1930s. I have read the historical books on every time period in the last three hundred years, and in the United States, the last two hundred and thirty-four years since our country was officially founded, and I have never seen the media worshipping someone like they were Kim Jong Il of North Korea, or Stalin of Russia, or Adolf "Adolfus" Hitler of the Reich. I have never seen it. In fact, it took them five, six years, after Hitler got in power in 33...they didn't start worshipping until 39. They didn't start using all those Messiah terms until they were getting the public ready to go into war, to go into empire, to go into unpopular things. And now they're doing it with Obama out of the gates, from the very beginning."

Comment: #3
Posted by: Femacamper
Fri Nov 7, 2008 4:29 PM
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