Political Punch

This distortion of words and taking things out of context are the very things that republicans bank on. Most of the "conservatives" do not listen to the full meaning of what people like President Clinton are saying. The republican media only reports a part of the phrase & this is what people hear. Then the whole thing gets blown out of proportion & you have the republicans saying that the Clintons want to slow down the U.S. economy. If you actually listen to the whole statement he is saying, you would understand that he is simply trying to make a point on how wrong it would be to slow our economy down to combat global warming. And if we embrace energy independence and create "green" jobs, it will actually expand our economy while combatting global warming - Hello, a win-win situation, right? But the "conservative" republicans will continue to believe the false propoganda that their lying, cheating, distorting party leaders are delivering and continue to drive our country and world toward disaster.

I AM SO TIRED OF THE POLITICS THAT GO ON IN THIS COUNTRY., OK LET ME BE CLEAR ON THIS- ( I AM AN INDEPENDANT) NOT A DEM OR A RE-PUB. SO IM KIND OF A MUTUAL OBSERVER. HOWEVER IT SEEMS THAT AS FAR AS THESE PRIMARYS GO THE PARTYS COULD REALLY CARE LITTLE ABOUT WHAT THE VOTE SAYS AND MORE ABOUT WHAT THEIR FELLOW POLITICIANS HAVE TO SAY.
FOR EXAMPLE- MIKE HUCKABEE IS RUNNING BEHIND IN THE DELEGATE COUNT AND PROBABLY CANT WIN THE NOMINATION OF THE PARTY. BUT THE RULES ARE UNTIL THE NUMBER IS REACHED THERE IS NOT A WINNER. SO WHY IS ALL OF THE REPUBLICANS IN WASHINGTON AND ALL OF THE POLITICIANS RALLYING BEHIND MCCAIN LIKE THIS THING IS OVER? GIVE THE PEOPLE A CHANCE TO VOICE THEIR OPINION. LET THE PRIMARY GO ON SO ALL OF THE STATES CAN HAVE THEIR VOICES HEARD.
THE MESSAGE THAT WASHINGTON SENDS IS THEY DONT REALLY CARE ABOUT THE OPINION OF THE HEART LAND- AFTER ALL WASHINGTON DC AND THE NEW ENGLAND STATES HAVE SPOKE. - THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS WAY OUT OF TOUCH, AND BECUASE OF THIS THEY WILL LOSE THE WHITE HOUSE, AND THEY DESERVE IT. YOU ARE ALIENATING YOUR BASE, THE VERY INDIVIDUALS THAT HOLD YOUR PARTIES VALUES.
FIRST IT WAS A VOTING SCANDAL IN WASHINGTON STATE., AFTER ALL HUCKABEE CANT BEAT YOUR FRONT RUNNER IN THREE STATES IN A ROW, CAUSE THAT WOULD JUST NOT BE WHAT THE PARTY WANTS.
THEN THERES ROMNEY, GOT ALL HIS VOTES FROM CONSERVATIVES WHO DO NOT WANT TO VOTE FOR MCCAIN.- THEN HE RUNS A SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST MCCAIN AND AFTER HE DROPS OUT HE NOW TRYS TO GIVE ALL HIS DELEGATES TO MCCAIN AS HUCKABEE STARTS TO SURGE WITH THE REPUBLICAN BASE. SOOOO WHY IS IT THAT THE REPUBLICANS DO NOT WANT THIS PRIMARY TO GO ON. THEY ARE TIRED OF THE MESSAGE THAT THE VOTERS ARE SENDING., ITS AGAINST THERE AGENDA, SO AS ALWAYS THE POLITICIANS HAVE DECIDED THEY ARE GOING TO PICK THERE CANIDATE- NOT THE VOTE OF THE PEOPLE.
OH DONT WORRY DEMOCRATS, IM SURE YOU WILL SEE THE SAME COME THE SUPER DELEGATES. WE WILL SEE WHAT MATTERS MORE, THE PEOPLES CHOICE OR WHAT
WASHINGTON AND POLICTICIANS WANT. I HOPE THE DEMOCRATIC SUPER DELEGATES DO THE RIGHT THING.
ITS TIMES LIKE THIS IM GLAD IM AN INDEPENDANT.

Perhaps Bill Clinton's curious choice of words stems from the fact that most of the so called green solutions are far less promising than they might appear to be. If we can not come up with more innovative technical answers, the remaining solution to the global warming problem is, unfortunately, a slow down of the (world) economy. But there are powerful innovative answers.

A non-political approach is discussed in a comment by me under the Frances Beinecke, NRDC president, discussion at

Here we are sending almost all of our manufacturing jobs to China. We buy these products & help their economy. Soon we will not be able to afford even the chinese products because we will have lost so many jobs. How many products do the Chincese buy from the US, that are actually manufactured in the US? We need to start making things again in the USA & supporting the companies who employ American workers.

Did Bill Clinton mean the exact opposite of what he said?
Jake Tapper investigates.

Geeeez.... What a right-wing hack attack.
And now this misleading and incorrect story is being spread all over crackpot "conservative"-land just like you intended.
Shame on you ABC.
You distort. You decide.

Jake,
Did Bill misspeak or did you misunderstand or did you mislead? Pretty clear it was choice 2 or 3. You need to correct your mistake ASAP.

This global warming thing could turn out OK for Mr GW Bu$h. If there are no future generations, he will not have to worry about his legacy !

Oh come on! You can't really be THAT stupid, can you? Clinton never said "we just need to slow down the economy"

He said that he imagined that it might be possible for industrialized nations to say that, but they'd be wrong to do so, because it wouldn't be realistic and wouldn't solve the problem.

So, now, because of this idiotic and intentionally obtuse mischaracterization, the bloggosphere is full of people quoting it as fact. Much like the never-said "I invented the Internet" quote from 2000.

Does ABC have ANY standards, at all? This wouldn't pass muster for meeting the standards of a junior high school newspaper.

Is this blog a satirization of conservatives? Because when this fiction is all that can be mustered for an attack, you got nothin. It only makes the purveyor of it look like an idiot or atonishingly, obviously dishonest. Makes you say WTF. Pointless.

Mr. Tapper, I assume you physically typed this essay yourself, and therefore, I assume you actually took the time to press the key for the two single-quote marks that surround the sentence about slowing down our economy. As a trained journalist and writer, you presumably did so because you knew those words represented a nested quote inside another quote, indicating that the words were not Clinton's own, but someone else's.

Therefore, it is obvious from this punctational giveaway that you knew Clinton was using the words about slowing our economy down as a hypothetical quote or idea expressed by a hypothetical someone else.

The lie that there is some question about what Clinton meant is entirely exposed by this, your own usage of punctuation which clearly signals that at the time you wrote this article, you knew that he was not saying those words as an expression of his own beliefs, but to represent someone else's.

Here is the relevant portion. I draw your attention to the single quotes surrounding that sentence within Clinton's full quote:

"And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada -- the rich counties -- would say, 'OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.' We could do that.

"But if we did that..."

There can be no doubt from this you understood the rhetorical structure of his comments, and that those words were not being stated as an expression of his own beliefs.

There can also be no doubt that when Clinton began the next paragraph with the word "But" that he was entering into a refutation of or objection to that stated belief, clearly indicating he disagreed with it.

Changing your headline to the question "What did he mean?" does not undo the essential dishonesty of this entire article. There WAS no question of what he meant until you decided to create one.

And by your use of the single quotes surrounding those words, you reveal that you knew this all along.

I am still awaiting a retraction.

To all of the Global warming "believers"..... please tell us why Mars, and Jupiter and Saturn are all warming at the same rate? Could it be that the carbon from Earth is migrating there as well? Or could it be because the Sun has a higher level of output? By the way, we just came to the Sun Spot minimum and are no heading to a higher level of Sun Spots. It happens ever 11 years folks.

Also, please explain to us why the CO2 levels FOLLOW the rise in temperature......

What did Jake Tapper mean by taking a couple of lines from the middle of a speech President Clinton gave and using them to turn President Clintons message upside down ? Did he mean that he would use any trick he could find to keep A Clinton out of the White House ? Could this have anything to do with Monica Lewinski dropping him for President Clinton? We MUST know these things.And we will not rest until we know ALL the facts and publish them for ALL to know.Have a nice day, Jacob. Later.

It is shocking that abc news would allow their name to be put on this type of misleading and incorrect reporting ... the NEW fox news?

This post is very misleading...
Read what Clinton said and decide for yourself...

This story illustrates a lot about our media and what passes for "news"

I listened to President Clinton's speech. Nowhere did he advocate slowing the economy to combat global climate change. What he did say was that slowing the economy was one way to do it, but that it was the wrong way to do it. He clearly and forcefully argued that combating global climate change could INCREASE JOBS here in the United States.

What President Clinton did was use a rhetorical device to set up his argument that combating global climate change could STIMULATE ECONOMY. For those who don't know, "rhetoric is the art (Latin) or technique (Greek) of persuasion through the use of oral, visual, or written language." --wikipedia.

To those of you who took what Tapper wrote at face value I have some questions? Did you actually watch, actively listen and critically listen to what President Clinton said? Did you watch and listen with an open mind, willing to be persuaded? Or did you just wait for the words you wanted to hear to confirm your preconceived ideas?

Its time to back Mitt Romney the only true conservative candidate. I agree with Sean Hanity

Is Bill Clinton the only person on the planet prepared to talk openly about a real global issue, one that is ominously looming before humanity on the far horizon?

What I find most surprising is this: even though Bill Clinton has "stepped it up" by talking about the need to slow the global economy -- given its leviathan scale and, perhaps, soon to become unsustainable growth rate -- there remains one problem, the proverbial "mother" of all global challenges, about which Republicans and Democrats, the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe and ordinary people, the corporatists and environmentalists, leaders and followers remain in virtually total denial.... trenchantly unwilling to discuss openly:

OVERPOPULATION ISSUE OVERLOOKED BY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

THE CAPITAL TIMES, Madison, WI
Rob Zaleski -- 1/25/2008

Thanks for your attention. Comments are invited.

Good info much appreciated

Yes Chris is right-on it, we must keep the clintons out of the white house at all cost,remember whitewater monica lewinsky,filegate and they went on a petty thief binge when George replaced them, taking whitehouse silverware,sheets ,towels,soap,art works and anything that wasn't nailed down before the were odered to give it back,and yet pardon gate was wide open for thieves , money launderers,fraud,crooked ,lobbiest and any kind of criminal activities known to mankind. please get thee to the Obama for president polls asap
OBAMA 08 GO GO oBAMA

I found the comments about Europe and Kyoto simply laughable...Only someone who doesn't know the first thing about Kyoto could make such statements...to wit...1)No European country is in compliance with its Kyoto targets and while I have forgotten the numbers (easy enough to find)...they are mostly well in excess of their targets...2) This is especially laughable given the way the Kyoto baseline was set...Kyoto is a joke

Once again the MSM is making news rather than reporting it. It is truly disgusting.

Here is what Bill Clinton said.

-snip-

And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich countries — would say, ‘O.K., we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

-snip-

Propaganda parading around as news should trouble the American people regardless of what presidential candidate you support. ABC should be more responsible.

Bill Clinton had his chance when he decided not to go for the Kyoto Protocol, when AL GORE WAS HIS VP. AL GORE, who had devoted decades to this kind of thing. Bill's idea was that it would slow down the economy. Seems like the European economies did just fine under Kyoto...

I'd just like to say everyone here needs to calm down, switch off their lights when not in the room, set their thermostat a degree or two higher in the summer and lower in the winter, and think for themselves. Bill Clinton is not advocating slowing the economy, and Tapper didn't claim he did. Its just that everybody overanalyzes every snippet of speech out there. Look, global warming is a man-made phenomenon (just ask the majority of scientists who are actually published in peer-reviewed journals). However, humans are very adept. While most governments and most americans aren't yet willing to sacrifice anything (even driving a *"£%^$ SUV), eventually they will. And money will be made by innovative companies that exploit this. That's Bill's point. Whether or not Hillary is the one to bring about this paradigm shift is very debatable, however. Peace.

This isn't really a discussion about global warming and if it is areal threat or not. It is about the right winged nutter media taking a stament that Bill made and twisting it around to sound like he wants to stop the ecconomy or stop the United States from working or what ever the heck they are trying to say. The fact is Global warming may be happening it may not be happening but how about this.....Suppose that global warming is in fact not a real threat what is the harm in doing something about what many perceive to be a major problem in most large cities of the world Carbon Monoxide build (see Bejing. Now lets assume that there is really nothing to worry about with smog or pollution except it is reall dirty and makes it difficult to breath and makes everything dirty and so on...Now I ask what is the problem with trying to make that filth disappear? The air will be cleaner, in all probability there will be new jobs created because of the technology that will be created becasue of the advancement in science (See US spce program circa 1960's). I also call this the automobile safety belt syndrome. When it was shown that safety belts saved lives did the Auto Industry go GOLLY WE REALLY NEED TO PUT THIS IN ALL CARS....NO! it had to be mandated byt OH MY GOD THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!!!!!AHHHHHHHHHHH! Now I am not sure but wouldn't it be nice to know how many people are alive today because they had to wear a seat belt! There is always resistence to inovation and advnacement for the human race (see Ludites) and those who are getting in the way of realizing that we can do soemthing about the environment we live in weather it has anything to do with Global warming or not is of little cosnsequence. What matters is quality of life and for me I want clean air and water for starters!

I saw this speech last night and remembered very clearly how BIll presented this concept it was a HYPOTHETICAL!!What if we slowed down our ecconomy then what would happen???Other countries like china and india would say well we are not going to do that because we have to catch up. Then Bill said something to the effect well we all have to get into this fight together and create the new industries that are going to make life better for everyone including China and India etc.

Reputable science is showing that the between 96 and 100% of change in “global temperature is natural and not manmade. That means in the worst case if the earth temperature was to change 5° over the next 10 years we could attribute .2° to humans. Not enough to make noticeable difference in the sea level or anything else. For this the Clintons what to impoverish America? And besides since 1998 (2nd warmest year on record, 1934 was the warmest) the mean global temperature has been on a steady decline. Our records only go back to 1880, nothing in the world history. Prior to that the 11th century was far warmer then it is now or for the predicted future, even by the most pessimistic global warming model. In that century there were far less Atlantic storms, and far less plagues and famines then there were in the centuries before and after. Scotland was an agriculture center, and in England they made wine, too cold to do that now. So what is the problem if the Earth gets warmer? However, it is not, solar energy patterns (there is no human influence there) is indicating we are heading for a much colder period that could last for the next 40 to 60 years.

It should be noted that when a natural disaster strikes it is those depended on government who are the hardest hit. This is true for anyone, rich or poor and anywhere in the world. So what Bill Clinton is proposing is the perfect liberal solution to a non-problem, reduce prosperity, and increase dependency on government.

This is the best case I can make for Barrack Obama and its what every democratic voter should think about before they vote.

Im very worried about Hillary becoming the nominee. One of the biggest reasons being, the republicans. They are salvating at the thought of going up against her. They have been gearing up for this, for years. And I know so many Hillary supporters are saying shes been there before, she knows how to fight them and win. But to me thats the the whole piont. Yes, maybe she will win. But why on earth would we as democrats nominate someone that has to fight off years of controversy and questionable practices that she and her husband have been involved in. And if she were to win, how many more enemys will she have created in the process. And in the end will that give us the kind of bipartisan Leadership that this country desperately needs right now. I know any democrat that we nominate is going to be given a hard time by the republicans. But Im absolutely convinced that Obama has much firmer ground to stand on.
In point, This is the message voters need to be getting.

Thanks for the update 2.
Before you create update 3, please listen to the speech you are writing about. It might surprise you.

Sorry Jake, you got it 100% wrong. Clinton doesn't want to slow down the economy, he wants to spur the economy by encouraging the developement of 21st century technology. You obviously must be aware of this by now. We await your retraction.

I guess ABC is now officially "The Least Trusted Name In News"

The Republican National Committee further mischaracterized Bill Clinton's comments. In an "Update" to his post, Tapper quoted the following statement from spokesman Alex Conant: "Senator [Hillary Rodham] Clinton's campaign now says we must 'slow down the economy' to stop global warming. ... Clinton needs to come back to Earth. Her 'tax-it, spend-it, regulate-it' attitude would really bring the economy crashing down. No amount of special effects will hide Clinton's liberal record."

Sen. Clinton's (D-NY) presidential campaign responded to Tapper's post by writing that Tapper "parsed President Clinton's speech," adding, "Actually the full quote shows that President Clinton was making the opposite point. He rejected slowing down the economy, and advocated for sustainable economic growth." Tapper responded to the campaign in a separate blog post, but did not address the substantive point:

The Clinton campaign did not provide for me, as requested, an explanation of what he meant.

Instead, the response from the Clinton campaign is to post an item on its "fact" hub and accuse me of "parsing."

I will plead guilty to "parsing" -- the dictionary definition of the word -- "To examine closely or subject to detailed analysis, especially by breaking up into components" or "To make sense of; comprehend."

But I suspect the Clinton campaign thinks of the word "parsing" in its more colloquial sense -- as in "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." I guess I should defer to their expertise.

After Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Iain Murray -- in a January 31 post on National Review Online's "The Corner" -- asserted in part that "Tapper isn't entirely accurate in characterizing what Bill said," Tapper added the following update to his post responding to the Clinton campaign:

UPDATE: Bill Clinton finds a defender/explainer over at the National Review, where Iain Murray takes a look at what an effort to reduce greenhouse gases would do to the U.S. economy and concludes that "while Tapper isn't entirely accurate in characterizing what Bill said, he's pretty accurate in summarizing the effects of the policies he recommends. Bill Clinton's economic stimulus plan is to slow down our economy."

This is the much more important issue here. Any serious effort to reduce greenhouses gases will have an impact on the economy and, initially, that impact could be negative.

There are ways to work towards having the impact in the long-term be neutral or perhaps even positive. But any serious effort will cost a lot of money and slow the economy, whether the world is in it together or the U.S. and industrialized nations go it alone. (I stand accused of saying that former President Clinton spoke honestly about that.)

That's not to say it should not be done -- it's just to acknowledge that, as with all things ambitious, there will be a cost.

In a January 31 post on his ABCNews.com blog, Political Punch, ABC News senior national correspondent Jake Tapper falsely suggested that former President Bill Clinton, during a speech in Denver the previous day, advocated "slow[ing] down our economy" as a strategy to combat climate change. In the post -- titled "Bill: 'We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy' to Fight Global Warming" -- Tapper wrote of Clinton: "In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: 'We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.' " Tapper then wrote: "At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? 'Slow down our economy'?"

In fact -- as also noted by the blog, Sadly, No! -- Clinton's full remarks on global warming during the speech, which Tapper included toward the end of his post, make clear that Clinton did not propose "slow[ing] down our economy" as a strategy "to combat global warming." He said that "rich" countries could take that approach; but then he said why he thought it wouldn't work, asserting that the "only way" to fight global warming is to prove that doing so "is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy":

CLINTON: And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada -- the rich counties [sic] -- would say, "OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren." We could do that.

But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world's fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

The Drudge Report linked to Tapper's post under the similarly misleading headline, "Bill Clinton: 'We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy' to Fight Global Warming ..."

What a terrible post. I love how the media creates these whirlwind stories, by taking them completely out of context. The actual quote continues: "We could do that...
But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren."

If anything, Clinton was trying to say the exact opposite. However, I can see by the comments below, that you have obviously gotten the reaction that you wanted. Good job there, buddy.

Are you kidding me? The economy is already slow, if I sell my house I lose money even after 3 years....and I got it at a deal in a decent place to live! You really want to slow down the economy even more to solve the "major" problem that the average global temperature has risen, something like, 1 degeree over the last 100 years? Does Clinton want us to hurt more financially then our fathers to solve the mythical "global warming" that has no chance of effecting even our (30 somthings) great grandchildren, if it even truely exists? (kind of like bigfoot)

There are things that cool the earth and things that warm it, and for a while, a few scientists thought the things that cool it were winning out. Some of them got carried away with their predictions, and the press got even more carried away, but there was never a 95% scientific consensus that human-caused cooling was a problem, like there is with global warming.

Natural mechanisms for warming are already accounted for in the models scientists have used to determine that human-caused CO2 is a factor. How dumb do you think climate scientists are, that they might not think to look at sunspots, Milankovitch cycles, or other natural causes of warming? Would you also like to tell thoracic surgeons how to perform triple bypasses?

Would people please not speak for all Americans? A lot of us would rather have another Clinton than four more years of Bush policies, even some of us who weren't so crazy about Bill when he was president. "The US citizens," as usual, is shorthand for the poster and his/her friends. If nobody wanted a Clinton, Hillary would have been forced to drop out by now.

Finally, if you'd bother to read the rest of the blog, the early comments on it, or the contents of Bill Clinton's speech, you'd know that he's not advocating that we slow down the economy. Quite the opposite.

All of that said, if he HAD said we will need to slow down economic growth, he'd have been right. Our growth will slow down no matter what we do. Will it slow because we halt our population growth and use our resources more efficiently, or will it slow because we simply run out of room to grow? I know a lot of armchair economists think as though the earth had infinite resources, but is anyone dumb enough to think our economy can literally grow forever?

To all the "Skeptics" of global climate change, tell me this. What happens to all the TENS OF MILLIONS of tons of waste gas that the world dumps into the air each day? Where does it go? Away? Away Where? To Mars? Or does it just disappear? "Global warming not proven"...that's a little ignorant! I don't need scientific evidence to tell me what rational thinking already does, and I don't want to hand our children a "burned out cinder' for a planet either. I know it's irritating for people to accept they are doing something wrong, or need to change, but come on. "Reducing greenhouse gases will allow China to get ahead" What? Do you think China's really getting ahead? The athletes for the Olympics are making plans to arrive in Bejing just before their events, the air quality is so dangerous there. Residents can barley breathe some days. Ever visit Bejing...I have, it's no picnic. They sell oxygen in vending machines! Some people have to be hit over the head with a bat in order to get it. The bat is going to swing very soon folks! You'll be singing a different tune a 5 years down the road I'll bet...

rdpruitt!

You simple minded fool.The idea that global warming is man made has not been determined beyond a reasonable doubt.It's what is called a theory (look up the definition).You call people who don't believe in this junk science numbskulls.You sir/madam are an idiot and have bought the lie hook line and sinker.I could give you a list as long as your arm of scientist who disagree with the so called prevailing attitude that global warming is man made but I am most confident that you are to blind and ignorant to do any real thinking of your own so I will not waste my time.If you want to be taxed at a higher rate and give up your individual freedoms to the "Almighty Government Bureaucracy" ,who preach this nonsense ,then by all means DO IT.As for me I will not be lead like a sheep down the road of propaganda and lies.And please stop with the nonsense that everyone who disagrees with this lie is somehow a right wing nut.Surely you are more intelligent than that.But then again.......maybe your not.

Slick Willy is at it again. He'll say anything. Why should the US slow its economy down just to appease third world nations? Countries dominated by militant Muslims want nothing more than to destroy our way of life and country; they want to relegate our women to mere chattel to be owned and sold. They want to destroy Christianity. And if the so-called atheists and agnostics believe they'll escape the wrath of radical Muslims (if and when they usurp power here) they are sadly mistaken. They'll be beaten until they proclaim Allah as their god and Mohammed as his prophet.
Why should there be any serious consideration about redistibution of the wealth? We need to wake up and it starts with making sure idiots like Bill and his wife never occupy the White House again. Should they gain 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again, they will, once again, do whatever it takes to obtain and retain power.
Bill and Hillary are nothing more than Beelzebub's earthly representatives. The American voter should not trust either of these two as far as they can throw them.
And when did Bill become an expert on the climate? The closest he has ever come to knowing anything about the earth's climate is when he watches The Weather Channel.
He, like his former VP AlGore, is nothing but a prevaricator. Hillary is no better. The Clintons are two of the slimiest characters to hit the political scene. It ought to tell you something when Ted Kennedy, of all people, won't even support Hillary.

"To the Global Warming folks:

Answer three questions: 1) What is the difference between climate and weather?
2) The Earth is 4.5 billion years old and we have had 4 ice ages with large ice sheets a mile thick and thousands of miles long. What caused the last ice age and the sheet to melt about 13,000 years ago with no "human activity". "

Weather guy, everyone knows that the earth is only 6,000 years old. The bible says so. Oh, and the sun orbits around the earth (duh! that's pretty obvious when you look at the sky and notice that the sun is moving, while we stand still!) and the earth is flat, not round, as some people believe, so be very careful when you get too close to the edge. You might fall off.

Reminds me of the malaise speech given by Jimmah Carter. These people are nothing but died-in-the-wool statists; fascists with smiley-faces. If they get re-elected, it will be nothing but Bill Clinton's third term and possibly the end of America as a great nation. Then again, if McCain wins, we'll all be part of Mexico. So either way, we're skrood...

You guys back off rdpriutt!. I am positive he has disconnected natural gas and electical power feeds to his home and has had his automobiles crushed so no one can use them to cause further damage. He has moved to an adobe shelter so he isn't impacting our sacred forrests and washes and reused his toilet paper for the same reason. He grows his own vegetables hydroponically and has quit eating meat so the animals won't exacerbate the CO2 problem with flatulance and burps. He has started his own business and operates it at a loss because as we all know, capitalism is the ultimate evil in the cosmos. Any money he does accumumulate he sends into the government for the common good. You know, the grand old Amerikan motto, "From those according to ability, to those according to need."

You had better get with the program and follow his pristine lead.

Easy for a multi-millionaire to want to slow down our economy. He's already a wealthy man and can survive a downturn caused by a government plan. But what about the average American?

Hard to believe that we elected this clown twice.

Bill is part of the George Soros' plan of diminishing the USA, in favor of foreign countries.
Where did it say in our Constitution, that US workers had to give up their good paying jobs, and work to give our tax dollars to foreign countries and that obscene U.N?
I'm telling you, we have far too many politicians and big businesses, that are ready to see us fall on our knees, so they can feel good about helping foreigners, rather than help their own fellow citizens!

Bill sees the world in terms of limits imposed on it by governments. He and his joke of a wife think that the only individuals that should be allowed to flourish and achieve are them, of course since they are so much smarter than you and I.A real, free Republic in this country is their worst nightmare because it means that politicians are largely irrelevant. To hell with these two altruistic dirt bags.

What Did Jake Tapper Mean by the confession "I don't really think" when he writes his blog?

February 1, 2008

Jake tapper wrote in his blog yesterday.

In a short entry with a misleading headline and a complete distortion of a quote of President Bill Clinton, Tapper confessed, "I don't really think."

He went on to write in an update, "I understandd," so there's something of a contradiction there.

Or perhaps he misspoke. I'm not quite certain.

For the full text (i.e., proper, undistorted context) of what Tapper said, read the blog entry above.

I thank God that most of the people posting here have not drank the kool-aide yet.

If you believe in global warming, don't just accept what the people who agree with you say, research it yourself. It is a concenses of some scientists who hate Capitalism and the U.S. Isn't it funny that their "religion" calls for things detrimental to both of the things they hate to be done to "save the planet"? It is a religion because it requires a whole lot more faith that belief in God and creation.

Have you ever traveled to another country? Have you seen how dirty their vehicles and industries are? Yet were the problem? No, it's an attempt to knock us down to their level instead of figuring out ways to better themselves.

Do you know that the perception in some of the countries of Central and South America is that the poor of our country are as poor as they are? Why? Because the U.S. media helps perpetuate the idea that they have no healchare, food, clothing, etc. So we just need to elect the right caring individual who will rob from the rich to feed the poor.

I work in the healthcare field and most of my business comes from the state medicaid program. The people in other countries are stunned that our government actually pays for doctors, hospitals, food, medicine, medical equip., etc. Why? Because the U.S. media and liberal politicians imply otherwise to gain votes and sway public and international opinion.

You think carbon dioxide is a problem? Try living without it. All those plants on the earth we are destroying with it just happen to breathe it and use it to produce oxygen. "Yes, but too much is bad" Ever see how much stuff grows on the sides of the roads and highways? Those plants aren't dying. Think ethanol helps? Did you know that it is much less efficient than gasoline? It makes your engine burn hotter and less fuel efficient. The EPA gives "MPG Credits" to the auto makers cars that can burn it so they can falsely claim it gets a higher mpg than otherwise.

Your heart may be in the right place, but if it isn't backed up by your brain then what body part are you using to make decisions?

The last time a president slowed economy was President Carter. Let's see that is when I bought my first house and the interest rate for a house was 17%. Yea Bill we should make that a reality

Richard Adams

Has anybody ever noticed that these global warming people want us to slow down, cut back on our necessities for the future, blah, blah, blah, but yet they never give up any of there's.
There big mansion's there running around in jets all over the country, the caravans when they go to there different states to suck up to the people. talk about scaring people into believeing that we actualy can stop this natural cycle!

I said it before & I'll say it again. Billy Boy you are nothing but a SCUMBAG!

The only way for Bill to help stop global warming is for him stop chasing the girls. He just "puts out to much GAS!

Bill means slow down the economy by raising taxes on all the forces business to pay for them by lying off employees to pay for the huge tax hikes. People who get laid off or have small business shut down because of Bill & Hill economics for a socialist America. You won’t need to drive because you can’t afford to, so not trips to the grocery store, clothing store, convinces store or restaurants. Less people on the roads, less people spending means less fuel being burned by business to keep the lights on for customers they used to have. There you go global warming is now reversed in Bill & Hill’s America. P.S. you’re still gonna pay for free health care for all those Illegal aliens that votes her and Bill back into the W.H. she keeps talking about. Think Mike Huckabee.

In the long run being environmentally
prudent makes a lot of sense
because to clean it up in the future
could cost trillions of cents!

rdpruitt -- where do I even start - 1)"the globe is heating up at an increasing rate, and without a doubt it is human-generated, carbon-based emmission that is the variable that distinguishes this change as distinctly different from preceding ones" -- First, there is significant doubt that the heating up is anything other than a normal atmospheric cycle. Human generated CO2 is a small percentage of the total and "carbon neutral lifestyles would make very little difference in the big picture. there are no accurate studies to show that this change is any differenct from previous changes - only supposition. Further, we have a very limited time frame to compare median temperatures - eons of earth existance vs about 100 years of data gathering on temps.. means that the cross section of study that indicates a warming trend is itself questionable. 2.)"don't you have any ability at all to recall how well the country was doing on his watch?" -- what I recall is a total lack of attention to a growing terrorist threat and and a "milking" of the robust tech economy through taxation that caused a resesion costing 6.8 million jobs. -- Not all wine and roses if you ask me... 3.)our debt problems have been exasperated by this administration, but by no means is this administration solely responsible for it.. we have been in an increasing debt mode for almost 40 years. 4.) Water borading is NOT torture.. we do it to our own troops during survival training 5.)citizens are NOT subject to spying...if you are calling ( by the indication of your phone records) the bad guys, then rightfully, the government might start taking an interest...its called probably cause... not spying...

Ron Croker - "One expert said that if the US shut down completely, meaning zero emissions, it would only reduce the world total by 20%" -- here is a real eye opener for you... It would onlyy reduce MAN MADE emissions by 20%. Man m,ade emissions account for only 5% of teh total world CO2 production. That means it would only make about a 1% change in that actual world total. -- thats right folks.. If everyone on teh planet begins living a COMPLETELY carbon neutral lifestyle - it will only make a 1-3% difference in the total world CO2 levels... Still think this is a man made problem of epic proportions??? Hardly...

Dr. Paul has the cure! Ron Paul 2008

I can't make heads or tails of what Bill actually meant. If we "go green", it will create millions of jobs? Does he mean government environmental scamming jobs? "Million and millions and millions" of them? Who's arguing about efficiency? The debate is real energy vs. fantasy energy. How would bio-fuels reduce CO2? How does Hillary plan to pay for her worthless windmills? Is it "good economics" to "take their profits" (Hillary's words) from companies that provide the REAL power of our economies? People make money by using energy. You reduce energy, you reduce wealth. A car that gets 100 mpg would be lovely, and we wouldn't need Billary to convince us of that. But Billary is not going to invent it, although they may punish our economy further for not inventing their utopia, with ridiculous naive demands of auto makers and teaching the rest of us a lesson with extra gasoline taxes. I don't see how the economy will improve with their childishness. The entire global warrming hoax is a guise for Communists to attack our capitalist prosperity, not improve it!

G BARGE:

1) Shame on our election? At least we have one!
2) Clinton military wise? Try Googling Kosovo or 9/11. I don't know if Google censored that stuff for you.
3) My economy is bigger than yours.
4) You mean China? We're on it.
5) Yes, most of us know that. What's your point?
5(the second 5) Bin Laden is not an oil company, and even if he was, we get our oil from Canada and Mexico.

I realize information is restricted in your country. But maybe you should stick to Chinese politics. Oh, I forgot, you can't do that either. In any case, its hilariouss to get lectured about gas emissions from China! Don't worry though, THE SUN HEATS AND COOLS THE EARTH, NOT CO2!!!

wow, slick willy must have lost his mind, wasnt his campaign slogan "its the economy, stupid." anyone who thinks slowing the economy down is completely mindless, what any reasonable politician should say is that we should shift investment to companies that invest in green tech, like toyota. but we have politicians like hillary that want to restrict foreign companies access to our market. these are the companies that have forethought and understand the reality that the world faces. if anything, politicians should the ones forcing companies to share their green tech with developing countries like india and china. there is no doubt that humans have had a negative impact on the environment. however, we will not wake up tomorrow and the average temperature of world will not have increased by 30 degrees nor will the oceans have risen by 10%. global warming doesnt happen instantaneously, but it is necessary to recognize the problem and attempt to get a head start. there is no way, especially during this time period, that slowing the economy is helpful. if this is any insight into how the clinton camp will run the white house, please do not vote for either bill or hillary to run our country. it will be as bad as what bush did.

Roughly, only 25% of the earth's surface consists of land mass. About half of the land mass is uninhabitable, so only 50% of the land mass is inhabited by people. (25% X 50% = 12.5%) Only 12.5% of the planet is inhabited.

Most of those people do not live in industrialized areas. In fact, half the world’s population lives on less than 3% of the “potentially habitable“ land area. (0.125 x 0.03 = 0.00375 or 0.4%) and maybe half of the people on that tiny percentage of land actually live in industrialized areas. (0.4% X .5 = 0.02%) When you finish doing the math, you find that man-made Global Warming proponents are trying to tell us that the activities of the people living on only 0.002% (that’s 2 tenths of 1%) of the earth’s surface are responsible for altering the climate/weather/temperature of the other 99.8% of the earth, 75% of which is oceans which have an immensely huge impact on our weather. UNNN-believable!!

There is a multitude of numbskulls in this country that have been led like burros down the right wing's dark street braying in support of its platform of self riteousness and greed. Listen, the globe is heating up at an increasing rate, and without a doubt it is human-generated, carbon-based emmission that is the variable that distinguishes this change as distinctly different from preceding ones, the economy is in total disaray (and did I read most of you as criticizing Bill Clinton's leadership; don't you have any ability at all to recall how well the country was doing on his watch?,) we're quagmired in a morass in the middle east that was predicated on lies by liars, our reputation around the world has tanked, we are in debt beyond belief, torture is policy, the citizenry is subject to spying, the president believes he speaks with God, (doesn't that startle you even a little?,) billions of dollars have been squandered in no-bid contracts, e.g., Cheny/Halliburton, and when, tell me when, please, when will we know that we have "won" the war on terror? When, um, when . . . What? Despite this short clip from a long list of travesties, so-called conservatives continue spewing garbage and, tragically, weak minded people (lemmings) continue to follow. This is a mad hatter's tea party! This once-wonderful nation of ours simply cannot stand any more of it. Open your eyes, stop your drooling, wipe your chins and, for crying out loud, think -- then see -- then change -- before things have become so distorted and foul that there can be nothing healthful left for human beings to share even so near as 50 years hence. Bill Clinton was exactly right, i.e., if we do not slow down our rampaging lust for more and more profit, then, well, then that'll be about it. But, hey, most of you will be dead, so why should you care? Right?

what would acceptable unemployment be to bill?

maybe 15%?

how about strating with his daughter who is employed by his pals at a hedge fund. what does she do there?

foreclose mortgages on working people?

why does he donate about $50 MILLION of that pile of cash he is sitting on to working class people.

also, tell his wife to resign that NO-SHOW senate job!

DEFINITELY not a fan of the Clintons, but it seems like Bill is being misrepresented here. The way I read this, he wasn't saying that we SHOULD slow down our economy to stop global warming. I think his point was that EVEN IF we decided to unilaterally slow down our economy in an effort to stop global warming, it wouldn't work because there are all these other countries that aren't going to make the same sacrifice just because we say they should. If that's what he was saying, I agree with him.