Obama's No Kennedy

A former RFK confidante leads McCain's rally in Gotham

In blistering remarks to a Saturday morning rally here, former Robert F. Kennedy aide Bartle Bull embraced Republican John McCain for president, hurled Barack Obama under the bus, and then backed it slowly over the Democratic nominee. "America needs a president who is grounded in patriotism, not drowning in ambition," Bull told a crowd of hundreds gathered in Lower Manhattan. "I have used that sentence many times in the last three months, and not once - never once - have I been asked which candidate is which."

The lifelong activist and former Village Voice publisher presented his impeccable liberal-Democrat credentials. "I had the privilege of serving as Robert F. Kennedy's New York campaign manager when he ran for president in 1968," Bull explained. "I was arrested as a civil-rights lawyer in Mississippi, and I campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment. But in honest conscience, I cannot support the Democratic ticket in this campaign."

Bull aimed at his target and charged like a longhorn. "Character in the White House should be more important than charisma on the campaign trail," Bull declared. "Barack Obama does not want to `change' America. Barack Obama wants a different country."

Turning to Obama's financial agenda, Bull minced no words. "Obama's notion of economic fairness is pure Karl Marx," Bull said, "plus a pocketful of Chicago-style `community organization.' "

Bull derisively recalled "how the Obama campaign ridiculed John McCain for not being able to use a computer - an attempt to reference his age. Senator McCain cannot use a computer because the Vietnamese repeatedly broke his arm when he refused to renounce his country and his fellow prisoners." Bull then asked the gathered McCain fans, "Do you suppose that Obama, or talky Joe Biden, can land an A-4 at night on a flight deck of an aircraft carrier in heavy seas?"

Bull and six other speakers rallied voters at Manhattan's Foley Square - one of six simultaneous events across the Empire State. The New York Veterans for McCain-Palin also hosted supporters of the GOP ticket in Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica.

Surrounded by the U.S. Courthouse, the Jacob Javits Federal Building, and other government facilities, John McCain and Sarah Palin's backers waved flags, shook placards, and cheered applause lines deep in the heart of Obama Country. While they were hard-pressed to tip New York (or even the 10007 Zip Code) into McCain's column, cameras from CBS, NBC, and Univision carried their message to places where McCain's fortunes are brighter.

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Barack Obama victory will hurt US firms - and world economy

Well, it's nearly over - this presidential election campaign that has gone on for so long I can scarcely remember what life was like before it started. So long has it been running that the world has actually gone through two tumultuous transformations of political reality during its span.

First there was the emergence of Russia as a threat to international stability in a form that should not have, but nevertheless did, come as a startling revelation to a complacent free world: a phenomenon which, in cynical partisan terms, played heavily in John McCain's favour. But that was followed, and almost totally eclipsed, by the economic implosion that brought every earlier assumption about the electorate crashing down with it.

So, in one of those bizarre jokes that history sometimes plays, the United States is apparently about to choose as president the most inexperienced, untried and virtually unknowable (because there is so little to know) candidate who has ever run for that office at a time of unquantifiable international risk and unprecedented economic instability: a candidate who, as Bill Clinton revealed in a wonderfully back-handed "tribute", responded to the banking collapse by ringing every expert he could find (including Bill) to ask them what he should be saying.

And not only does it seem likely that Barack Obama will be elected president, but that he will arrive in office accompanied by a legion of new Democratic senators and congressmen which will give his party a lock on both the executive and legislative branches of government, thus permitting it to do precisely anything it wants.

A week ago in New York, I talked to senior Republicans who were dividing their time between conference calls to the White House to discuss the economic crisis and exasperated confrontations with the McCain campaign team over the ineffectiveness of its strategy. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the state of dissension and dissatisfaction within the higher ranks of the Republican Party - which is why the Obama claim that a McCain White House would simply be George Bush by other means is so ludicrous and disingenuous.

In truth, McCain's status as an outlaw within his own party ("maverick" is much too mild a word) has meant that he has had only the most ambivalent relationship with what was once a very professional Republican campaigning machine. Those members of the Bush team who have been involved with the McCain-Palin ticket have been accused of being so out of sympathy with its message and tone as to be positively counter-productive.

Combine this with the fact that McCain has been running against not just a super-financed Obama machine but the most monolithically hostile media barrage in electoral history, which forced him to spend most of his time and energy on defensive fire-fighting, and you get a sense of why the Republican effort has so often seemed at cross-purposes with itself.

This media phenomenon may yet prove double-edged. There is just a possibility (maybe I am clutching at straws here, but we shall see) that the relentless onslaught from the mainstream press and television networks has made support for McCain unsayable rather than impossible and that this is producing seriously skewed opinion-polling results. This could mean, to put it in British historical terms, that this election will be 1992 (complete with premature victory celebrations) rather than 1997.

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Look who's rooting for Obama

What do Iran's ayatollahs, Hamas terrorists, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi have in common? They are all pulling for Barack Obama to win the US presidential election. When Israel's disparate foes manage to rally behind a single candidate, it should set off alarm bells for anyone who cares about the Jewish state.

If you think this is just Republican scaremongering, consider the following. Last week, Ali Larijani, the hard-line speaker of the Iranian parliament, told a press conference in Bahrain that "we are leaning more in favor of Barack Obama because he is more flexible and rational" (Agence France Presse, October 22).

And then there is the October 19 endorsement that Obama received from Hamas spokesman Ahmed Yousef, who told WABC radio host John Batchelor and World Net Daily's Aaron Klein that "we as Palestinians are thinking that we might have better luck with a new administration, maybe, if Obama wins the election... I do believe he will change the American foreign policy in the way they are handling the Middle East."

There you have it. Two clear expressions of preference for Obama from two of the leading anti-Israel and anti-Western forces in the Middle East. Both the Iranian regime and the Hamas terrorist organization view Obama in a positive light and hope he will be elected. Their enthusiasm for the senator from Illinois is shared by a number of other long-time enemies of the Jewish state on both sides of the Atlantic.

On June 11, Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, in a speech broadcast on Al-Jazeera, spoke glowingly of the Democratic nominee. According to a translation provided by MEMRI, Gaddafi said, "His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency."

Back in the US, anti-Semitic firebrand Louis Farrakhan earlier this year labeled Obama "the hope of the entire world" and compared him to the founder of the Nation of Islam, the group Farrakhan heads (Associated Press, February 25).

Normally, one would expect that such a motley collection of rogues would be enough to send shivers down the spine of even the most spineless of voters. In the end, who wants to be cheering for the same outcome as Gaddafi and Farrakhan? Nonetheless, if two recent polls are to be believed, Obama seems poised to capture a significant majority of the Jewish vote.

A SURVEY released last week by Quinnipiac University found that Jews in the battleground state of Florida are backing Obama by a margin of 77 percent to 20%, while a Gallup survey revealed that nationwide, Jews favor him over Sen. John McCain by 74% to 22%. While that is less than the 80% that Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman garnered in the 2000 election, it is similar to the 75% that John Kerry captured four years ago.

One can only shake one's head in bewilderment at such a predilection, particularly in light of Obama's flip-flop on Jerusalem back in June, when he told the annual AIPAC policy conference that he supports the city remaining Israel's united capital, only to back-track from that position the following day. If Obama can't stand firm on the campaign trail on such a basic issue of fundamental importance to Israel and its supporters, how can he be counted on to do so if given the keys to the White House? Any pro-Israel Jews and Christians still sitting on the fence, wondering how to cast their ballot on November 4, would therefore do well to bear in mind the revealing comments made recently by Jesse Jackson.

Speaking at the World Policy Forum in Evian, France two weeks ago, Jackson promised that the "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" will lose influence once Obama is in charge, as he will stop "putting Israel's interests first." "Obama is about change," Jackson observed, "and the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it" (New York Post, October 14).

The bottom line is that Obama makes Teheran, Tripoli and Gaza convulse with excitement, and that alone should make the rest of us shudder with fear.

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Passing by in Silence

The other day our Flemish correspondent VH produced a well-researched and thoughtful article about Indonesia and Barry Soetoro, a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama. Dymphna and I were dismayed by the lack of reader response, given how much time, energy, and bandwidth has been given over to (for example) arguing about Russia.

The election on Tuesday will be one of the pivotal events of the early 21st century, and the Islamic aspects of Barry Soetoro's childhood in Indonesia deserve close scrutiny, since they may affect the well-being of millions of people once he takes the reins of power.

I just posted another article about Russia, and I'm sure there will be a hundred more comments on it with people rehashing the same old arguments.

But, just for a change of scenery, I suggest a visit to VH's excellent article before the election results turn the this, the twilight of American democracy, into ancient history.

Here's what Dymphna had to say about these matters in a comment (the only comment so far) on VH's post:

In looking through post listings on our dashboard, I noticed with surprise that this essay has no comments. Not a one. Birds chirping. Silence.

This is amazing. Two trackbacks - and good ones, I might add - but nary a word on our blog addressed to this wealth of material.

It is worrying that this essay is passed over as though it's not even here. The Russian thread went on endlessly, though Russia is of peripheral interest to us AT THE MOMENT compared to Obama's origins. After all, where he comes from and what his influences are could have a direct and lasting impact on about half the people who read this blog.

So I have been contemplating why the post is simply ignored and my pondering led to this comment. Since nary another soul has seen fit to respond to it, I will write at length. It doesn't make up for the lack of response, but it does make me feel better to let it all hang out.

Certainly the material presented in this post is fascinating. Not just what we learn about Barry Soetoro's early childhood experiences - though they are crucial to the fate of America if he wins the election. It reminds one of the old saying "give me a child until he is six and he is mine forever."

As our poster makes clear, little Barry internalized the Koran early on. He did it the same way I internalized the Latin Mass at that age. Just as I can still recite the "Gloria" or the Introit of that ancient liturgy, no doubt O can still chant parts of the Koran in perfect Arabic.

In other words, such intensive training, for better or worse, stays with you. It doesn't go away just because you "grow up" and move on to other things. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's apt lines about the depth of childhood's faith and of one's "lost saints" is operative here.

Thus li'l Barry's formative experiences in Indonesia (before he was shipped back to Hawaii) plus the growing cultural unrest and instability in the region are crucial in two areas: the first is the implications they have for our election here in the US, and the second is for the coming destabilization of the area.

This could mean big trouble for Australia, at the very least.

So why do you think this post about Obama was passed by in silence? Does the disturbing knowledge about his childhood formation combine with the fear we have that Obama's handlers will turn us irrevocably toward a European "solution" for what was the exceptionalism represented by the US character? We all be socialists now??

Are we now to be judged safer by the world because we will be tamed by a talker rather than led by a man of action? To those America-hating Europeans who so love Obama, who would vote for him if they could, here is a warning: be careful for what you wish. When the One takes over, your exultation may change to dismay as the realization sets in that you're on your own to handle the thugs in the larger world. Obama will be too busy talking to those same thugs to notice your plight.

The Obama juggernaut, so carefully planned and executed by Bill Ayers & Co (the same Ayers who thought the deaths of 25 million Americans a small collateral price to pay for the triumph of his plans) may appear to many as an inevitable rape. With no way to stop it, we numb out and wait for it to be over. We hope he won't inflict more damage than Carter did, when in reality Obama's handlers are more brutal than FDR ever dreamed.

The abnegation of the US media regarding Obama is another tipping point. This slide to the bottom where they will live now with the other mud-feeding fish makes them a new species of "journalists".

What they have done in this election makes their treatment of Bill Clinton look harsh in comparison. If they were "in the tank" for the latter, they are actually flushing their heads down the toilet for the One.

Who feels up for the quixotic task of fighting these piranha for Obama? You only have to look at what they did to Joe the Plumber to know you're in dangerous waters. That attack could not have taken place without the active cooperation of the frenzied press as they followed the Leader.

So I interpret the passing over of "Indonesia, Terrorism, and Barry Soetoro" as a kind of unvoiced despair. This hopelessness applies not only to the coming election, but to the ratcheting up of the violence and increasing Islamization of Barry's childhood home place.

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The Coming Obama Global Test

"The reality is, we have to cleanse the soul of America. Our soul is covered in militarism, economic exploitation and racism. . . We need to acknowledge the obscenity that America is . . . America the beautiful is America the obscene."
- Boston City Councilman Chuck Turner, Sept 13. 2005

Hundreds of middle class Americans leapt to their feet and applauded those words as they echoed off the walls of Boston's Faneuil Hall, a place where 263 years earlier Samuel Adams, and other American patriots, fomented the American Revolution.
Other speakers followed, all of them mirroring Turner's horrid disdain for America, including Professor Naseer Aruri of the National Council of Arab Americans who referred to Islamic terrorists as "so-called terrorists" and portrayed the US as the world's biggest cause, and purveyor, of international terrorism. But Aruri's remarks were mild compared to the anti-US tirade delivered by the evening's keynote speaker, British MP George Galloway, a corrupt man who had once licked the bloodstained boots of Saddam Hussein.

The people who cheered Galloway's speech that September evening are now among Barack Obama's core supporters, friends, and promoters. They are not people who will vote for Obama out of ignorance or naivety. They will vote for him because they agree with his friend Jeremiah Wright when he screams, "No, no, no, not God Bless America, God damn America." They do not overlook Obama's collaborations with Bill Ayers because they have bought the tripe that Obama was "only eight years old" when Ayers was throwing bombs, they will vote for him because they agree with Ayers's violent anti-US, anti-capitalist views. Obama's friendship with Ayers, and Obama's other radical alliances are signals of his kinship with them.

Bill Ayers says, "It [America] makes me want to puke." People who cheer a Councilman Turner when he excoriates their country also share Bill Ayers's retching sentiments, just as surely as one who sits in the pews of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ for two decades shares Jeremiah Wright's.

The question is: Are those who hold such views even capable of protecting America from her conventional enemies like Iran and from existential threats like those posed by stateless, dedicated totalitarian groups like Al Qaeda? Human beings do not protect and secure principles they do not love or ideas they have been taught to hate.

Like those who cheered Chuck Turner's and George Galloway's Faneuil Hall speeches, Obama's ideological signals have not eluded America's external enemies. Through provocation, they will seek to clarify their meaning.

Who will "test" a President Obama?

Obama's running mate Joseph Biden recently said, "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. . .Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. . . As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's gonna happen."

With that statement, and perhaps for the first time in his life, Senator Biden made sense. He also prompted a question: Can America afford the results of the test he guarantees will happen? What if ruthless Islamic radicals test Obama? They tested President Carter and he failed. The cost of failure was the radicalization of Iran, the rise of violent Islamist movements, the loss of a strategic ally and the emboldening of America's adversaries worldwide.

Islamic radicals tested President Clinton. They tested him in Somalia and he failed, they tested him in Tanzania and he failed, they tested him in New York City in 1993 and he failed. Finally, they tested him in Yemen by ramming an explosive-filled boat into the USS Cole, killing Americans and nearly sinking that ship. Clinton failed his tests, confirming to Osama Bin Laden his view of America as a paper tiger, and prompting 911.

On September 11, 2001, Islamic radicals tested another US president by crashing airliners into American landmarks, murdering 3,000 people in the process. By responding to those attacks instantly and ferociously, that president passed his "test." The proof of that is irrefutable: America has not been attacked since, and those who administered his "test" have spent the last seven years so occupied by the pursuit of self-preservation, that they have not had the time to test him again.

Politically speaking, Barack Obama has far more in common with Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton than he does with George W. Bush. It is speculative but reasonable to conclude that considering the devastation brought upon them by President Bush, Islamic radicals would be extremely hesitant to "test" him, or someone like him, again.

Not so when it comes to Barack Obama -- since his aversion to the use of force is written on his sleeve. Obama promises to hold non-conditional talks with America's enemies. He and fellow leftist Democrats promise to downsize the military and to walk away from Iraq. Obama spoke about the "tiny" country of Iran and about preemptively invading Pakistan, illustrating a shocking ineptitude in the realms of foreign policy and basic geography. None of his statements or gaffe-prone political posturing has escaped the notice of America's enemies. They will be racing each other to "test" a President Obama. If one of those "tests" is of the magnitude of 911 while America is in a weakened economic state, she might not survive.

Consider the economic destruction caused by the events of September 11, 2001: Lower Manhattan lost 30% of its office space and many businesses there were permanently destroyed. Close to 200,000 jobs were lost or moved out of New York. Direct job losses amounted to $17 billion in lost wages and increased pressure on government social programs. Fourteen billion dollars worth of private business assets were vaporized, as were $2.2 billion worth of federal and local government enterprises.

Rescue and cleanup efforts cost around $11 billion. Total losses, including lost tax revenue, lost jobs, cleaning costs and damage and destruction to buildings and infrastructure in New York were approximately $95 billion. Insurance losses related to the attacks were between $30-58 billion, resulting in increased insurance premiums and permanently cutting into the bottom lines of businesses and individuals across America. Airlines, on a weak economic footing prior to the attacks, were devastated. Air travel crashed 8% after 911 and massive, industry-wide layoffs were executed. Consumer spending dropped sharply in the months following the attacks and America's GDP shrank.

The 911 attacks happened during a time of relative economic stability. What will happen to America, indeed to the world, if a similar attack occurs while she is in an economic state like the current one?

Those who most trivialize the magnitude of the threats posed by totalitarian Islam are squarely in the Obama camp. That is a fact, not a smear. Some of them (John Kerry, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, and Obama himself) toiled to undermine the US-led war against Islamic terrorists in Iraq. They did that while American soldiers were in harm's way.

Those same Democrat Senators and Congressmen will be among Barack Obama's closest advisors. Their dangerous disrespect for America's fighting men and women, their apologetics towards America's enemies, their characterizations of American soldiers as murderers and torturers, their media-abetted crusade to hamstring America's intelligence capabilities have given support and encouragement to those who intend to harm us.

As elected officials they have opposed almost all of the policies that have kept America safe from attack for seven years -- that opposition has not escaped notice by our enemies. The same Democrats who shouted premature proclamations of defeat in Iraq will be controlling US foreign policy and directing the military they seem to loathe. Their treacherous actions during the Bush presidency nearly assure that Senator Biden's prediction of an Obama "test" will come true sooner rather than later in an Obama presidency.

Before stepping into the voting booth on Tuesday, ask yourself these questions: Is Barack Obama suited to deal with violent Muslim theocrats who have sworn "death to America" by any means? Will a Barack Obama presidency invite attacks on our soil by such people? Can America with a President Barack Obama at her helm survive the guaranteed test Joseph Biden speaks of?

Finally, with Chuck Turner, George Galloway, Jeremiah Wright, and Obama's close friend Bill Ayers on your mind, ask yourself this: Does Barack Obama and the Democrats who will govern with him have enough love for America as she is, to protect her by any means necessary? After answering those questions, vote.

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The Obama Campaign's Credit-Card Crack-up

A breakdown of controls has enabled foreign and other unaccountable funds to pour into the Obama campaign - and it's not an accident

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been and may still be accepting credit-card and prepaid-card contributions from overseas. It has done so in a way that may very likely prevent it from refunding the contributions to "donors," many of whom may have had their credit cards used without their consent. It's virtually impossible that the system for accepting card contributions was inadvertently set up without adequate controls, and almost certain that existing controls were instead deliberately disabled to create untraceability. Finally, it is likely that the total dollar amounts involved run in millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars.]

In mid-August, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, writing at American Thinker, summarized a pattern of irregularities she had found. Geller, and readers who assisted her, discovered that: "Obama's overseas (foreign) contributors are making multiple small donations, ostensibly in their own names, over a period of a few days, some under maximum donation allowances, but others are aggregating in excess of the maximums when all added up."

The contributions had come from over 50 specifically named countries and major cities. Obviously bogus contributor names that a 7 year-old would have known to be fictitious, including "Hbkjb, jkbkj," "Doodad Pro," and "Good Will," were frequent.

"Thousands of Obama's foreign donations ended in cents." U.S. contributors very rarely contribute in anything other than whole dollar amounts, so the reason why contributions would end with anything other than ".00? would almost always involve foreign currency translation.

In a later post, Geller listed 18 donors who had contributed more than the legal $2,300 limit. "Good Will" and "Doodad Pro" were among them, to the tune of over ten grand each.

You might think "Well that's pretty bad, but really no big deal, because at some point, Obama will just refund the money." In many cases, that does not appear likely.

On October 22, Geller's "Who Is John Galt?" post revealed information that should have set off alarms in newsrooms across America - namely, that anyone could pretend to be someone else, with someone else's address, and successfully process a credit-card donation to Obama. Reader Craig reported the following:

I've read recent reports of the Obama campaign receiving donations from dubious names and foreign locales and it got me wondering; how is this possible?

I run a small internet business and when I process credit cards I'm required to make sure the name on the card exactly matches the name of the customer making the purchase. Also, the purchasers address must match that of the cardholders. If these don't match, then the payment isn't approved. Period. So how is it possible that the Obama campaign could receive donations from fictional people and places? Well, I decided to do a little experiment. I went to the Obama campaign website and entered the following:

Name: John Galt; Address: 1957 Ayn Rand Lane; City: Galts Gulch; State: CO; Zip: 99999

Then I checked the box next to $15 and entered my actual credit card number and expiration date (it didn't ask for the 3-digit code on the back of the card) and it took me to the next page and "Your donation has been processed. Thank you for your generous gift."

This simply should not, and could not, happen in any business or any campaign that is honestly trying to vet its (sic) donors.

How can this happen? Here's how:

Having worked for companies that process credit cards online, it is necessary to go through and manually disable the safeguards that they put in place to verify a person's address and zip code with the cardholder's bank. But international banks don't currently have the same safeguards that banks in the U.S. have, which also works in the One's favor. So most likely they've disabled the necessary safeguards for U.S. cards .

The disabled components involved are part of what is known as the "AVS" (Automated Verification System). Many bloggers and blog commenters have confirmed the accuracy of the just-excerpted claims, including the fact that the merchant has to take proactive steps to rewrite or disable existing programming and controls to make AVS not work.

This information would indicate that Team Obama does not know (or pretends not to know; that would be for investigators to determine) who specifically has donated much of its campaign money - and the fact that they don't know is deliberate.

Further, the lack of controls in Obama's campaign-contribution system enables the use of prepaid cards, which if paid for in cash, are more than likely completely untraceable without going back to store video recordings, most of which are discarded or overwritten after a short time.

From all appearances, in both cases - unverified credit-card and prepaid-card contributions - it is very likely that the Obama campaign couldn't refund monies received even if it wanted to. Donations to Obama are making it to statements of cardholders who never authorized them. The only people who might get their money back are the ones who catch the charges. And what about charges to stolen or forged cards?

Despite many tests, no one has been able to show that these material control weaknesses exist in the McCain-Palin contributions system.

Meanwhile, though space doesn't permit fully chronicling the specifics, America's mainstream Obama-mad media has been negligent in covering this astonishing story, either failing to report it at all (which Clay Waters of NewsBusters has noted is the case at the New York Times), or blandly understating the severity and, if you will, audacity of the enterprise (Washington Post, October 25 and October 28; National Journal).

If this were John McCain's campaign, a deafening "what did he know and when did he know it?" chorus would have begun well over a week ago. As it is, most voters have cast or will cast their presidential ballots totally unaware of what may very well be the largest and most highly-organized campaign-finance fraud in U.S. elections history. As they do, they should be asking, "What did Obama know and when did he know it?"

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Brainless Obama the Warmist wants to bankrupt coal-fired electricity generation

And thus cause blackouts in most of America, apparently

Imagine if John McCain had whispered somewhere that he was willing to bankrupt a major industry? Would this declaration not immediately be front page news? Well, Barack Obama actually flat out told the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate) that he was willing to see the coal industry go bankrupt in a January 17, 2008 interview. The result? Nothing. This audio interview has been hidden from the public...until now. Here is the transcript of Obama's statement about bankrupting the coal industry:

Let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there.

I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

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.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them.

Amazing that this statement by Obama about bankrupting the coal industry has been kept under wraps until this time.

UPDATE: NewsBusters' Tom Blumer has found out that the San Francisco Chronicle story published on January 18 based upon this January 17 interview did not include any mention of Obama's willingness to bankrupt the coal industry which you can hear on the audio. You can read the story here when you scroll down to the "In His Own Words" section. Way to cover up for The One, SF Chronicle!

Source (See the original for links, graphics etc.)

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