Tuesday, May 13, 2008
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McCain, Cap-and-Trade, and the Return of Nuclear Power
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
9:31 AM
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Senator McCain laid out his program for addressing concerns over global warming in a speech in Oregon yesterday. The Oregonian reports on the key differences betwen McCain's plan and Obama's apprach:
The centerpiece of McCain's approach to slowing global warming is a nationwide "cap-and-trade" system for reducing emissions -- setting an overall pollution limit, then letting individual polluters buy and sell emissions allowances within that limit.
Political minefields
But in delivering his manifesto Monday, he also stepped directly on two of the biggest ideological land mines around global warming reductions. He endorsed nuclear power and proposed to crack down on China and India if they don't adopt similar caps to control their accelerating emissions. The full McCain speech is here.
Skeptics about any aspect of the global warming debate --the significance of the temperature rise, its origins, or the ability of humans to affect the temperature change-- thus have a choice: A candidate with a plan that includes a push for nuclear energy and accountability for China and other rapidly industrializing countries, or a candidate who will push an America-first, only, and without nuclear power plan.
McCain has occupied the center on this debate, and the GOP and conservatives should get over it and begin working to keep enough Republican senators in place to assure that President McCain's emphasis on a new generation of nuclear power plants becomes a reality, thus keeping cap-and-trade from becoming a suffocating blanket.
If cap-and-trade leads to the long overdue renaissance of nuclear power plant construction and generation in the U.S., it will have been a very good thing indeed. The long-term health of a growing American economy requires nuclear power, and McCain's embrace of a renewed renewable energy policy with nuclear power at its center is the carrot that climate change skeptics need to work towards making the legislative scheme work. If the new law incentivizes nuclear power plant construction and --crucially-- clears regulatory hurdles used by anti-nuke extremists to delay that construction-- the plan could end up with large net energy gains even as it forces down greenhouse gas emissions.
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I am really running out of any reason to vote for McCain. |
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Bob Barr. Cap and Trade is yet another scam to build yet another big government bureaucracy. It's nothing more than selling one's virtue to sinners so they can continue to sin. It does nothing to reduce pollution anymore than taxes eliminated smoking or alcoholism. Why don't we set up an adultery cap and trade system? I am hereby willing to sell my adultery credits to anyone out there who has a little secret they would wish to offset.
There can no longer be any doubt that the Dems and GOP and now one and the same. Go Bob Barr!!! |
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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/stories/2008/05 /13/mulligans_0514.html
I guess an enterprising Georgia babakazama booster has enlisted Curious George to campaign for babakazama like Willie Horton was enolisted to aid Dukakis in 1988. This amounts to another 'celebrity' endorsement of Rev Jeremiah Wright's long serving Altar Boy.
Did anyone catch Wesley Cook, aka Mumia Abu Jemima's stirring endorsement of Wright's acolyte on 'Dimocracy Now,' produced and starring millionair Bolshevik Amy Goodman? |
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Lunacy, dreaming, shallow, naive, idiocy...
Yessssiirrrreeeee, Juan, I can see those two skyrocketing economies--one, the largest Totalitarian Dictatorship on the planet, EVER--saying 'OK!' to that.
I really got McCain's frame of mind on the EeeekK environment a couple of months ago when he said that drilling in ANWR made him think of oil derricks on the floor of the Grand Canyon! I'm seriously amazed that he's for Nuclear Power. |
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Let’s call this leftist energy ideal what it is - economic terrorism. Every Congress-critter that has voted to support this policy, or continues to promote the global warming hoax, should be sent to Club Gitmo for a nice extended pyramidal stay. |
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global warming. McCain's on the right track that the best, cost effective, energy source to "fuel" alternative fuels is nuclear power. McCain needs to reframe the discussion to energy independence to appease conservative thinkers, and diffuse the climate change squawkers.
It amazes me with all the available PR and communication talent, and the money political advisers get, McCain can’t find the right words to frame and promote an environment or energy policy discussion that makes common sense, while minimizing the emotional reactions and sensitivities of individuals/voters.
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The whole cap and trade thing is nothing than a scam, just like buying indulgences. Does anyone think those who bought indulgences got a free ticket to heaven?
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The key to unlocking the mystery is to remember that McCain has no strongly held convictions other than he desperately wants to be president and the solution to all problems starts with government. He doesn't understand the energy issue any more than he understands economics. He sees Al Gore's Nobel Prize and the adulation he has attracted and he will pursue the path he sees as easiest: pandering to nutty left-wing libs. This is only going to get worse as he reads conservative comments like these. His EGO won't let him get on the right track. |
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Let's find a way to get a genuine GOP nominee, not this D-lite imposter.
He is chasing away the GOP voters, thinking he'll be elected by "independents and moderates".
What a pipe dream! |
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I am happy to hear McCain talking about nuclear power for the U.S. It is something we should have continued doing for the last 30 years. Sorry to hear he is using "Global Warming" to press it.
Aloha,
Keahi |
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Liberal Democrats (Lib-Dems) see the latter 1970s as some kind of golden age. As the Lib-Dem poster child, Obama peddles the tired, failed Carter-era policies as "new."
One of the many shibboleths of the era is nuclear power is bad. They think 'China Syndrome' is a documentary. They see a permanent mushroom cloud over Three Mile Island and believe every US reactor is built like Chernobyl, staffed by thousands of Homer Simpsons.
Lib-Dems love Socialist countries' health care and social policies, but seem clueless to the knowledge that these same countries are the world's biggest fans of nuclear power. The primary source of energy in the only country to actually be attacked with a nuclear weapon, Japan, gets 80% of its energy from nuclear reactors. Even modern Lib-Dems like Nicholas Kristoff and Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore -that is, ones who actually reason instead of react - understand there's a difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
No one has died of a radiation-related accident in the history of the U.S. civilian nuclear reactor program. Whether you believe in global climate change (or its causes) is less relevant than knowing we can't reduce our dependence on the Middle East without moving to nuclear energy. That alone is reason enough to support McCain. |
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There is no scientific proof that human activity is causing the earth to become warmer. I am willing to debate this with Al Gore. |
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Ole John is nuts on global warming but right on nuclear energy. Still, why cannot these dolts in Congress see that oil seeking, drilling, is much safer today than 30-40 yrs. ago. We could drill and have oil for hundreds of years. John and of course the liberal nutters just cannot see that. Oh well, if John wins, perhaps he can snooker the socialists to build nuke plants and perhaps he will realize that cap and trade will expand our budget so high that even libs will gag. Or maybe not. As for Barr; oh pulesze. All he will do is pull a Perot so the Messiah wins. It is amazing how silly people can be when trying to understanding electoral politics. Nader won't draw 50,000 votes this year so he is a non-force on the Dem side. If he gets that, those dopey voters are stoned. |
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John McCain cannot become the next president of the United States!
I am not a Libertarian but Bob Barr has done a service for the United States by running for president! Conservatives now can vote for a “truer conservative,” than McCain.
What has happened to the Republican Party? Even Newt has gone to the dark side with the global warming hoax!
No doubt, that voting for Bob Barr will give Obama the White House. Nevertheless, if democrat/socialist policies are going to be promoted then let someone that has democrat/socialist title be responsible for the consequences!
McCain is counting on conservatives to vote for him because he believes that we will not want to see the democrat in the White House. However, if conservatives vote for him it will set the Reagan Revolution back another generation. Can those of us that claim to love the great conservative Ronald Reagan and, what he did for us, violate our consciences by voting for liberal McCain? Conservatives must not only defeat the left wing we must defeat the Nixon/Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party! Let these elitist do what Jay Rockefeller did and join the other elitist that comprise the democrat party!
Therefore, we must prepare for the pain of another Jimmy Cater, so that the Reagan Revolution will again rise out of the wilderness and bring pride in, and common sense to the United States of America!
May God Help the United States of America!
Bob Edmunson
Vancouver, Wa
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Senator McCain, his science and environmental advisers are scientifically challenged and obviously unaware or oblivious to the facts:
- that even as CO2 increases the global temperature has leveled off since 1998 and even cooled slightly in 2007.
-A number of US, English and Russian scientists using computer models are forecasting a cooling period for the next decade or longer
-3000 thousand Argo monitors that have been recording and reporting the temperatures of the oceans since 2003 have found no evidence that the oceans are warming
-the Arctic ice has returned and the Antarctic ice cap is colder and increasing.
- the polar bear population is increasing according to Canadian authorities.
Conclusion- There is no scientific evidence that CO2 causes the earth to warm.
In his support for Cap and Trade, which is a scam advocated by Enron(before its demise) and other energy trading companies and those who support stifling the American economy, the Senator is pandering to the Al Gore Global warming groupies and is giving energy traders, who already set the prices for crude oil and petroleum products and a bureaucratic international group almost total control of the economy of the United states. This is economic insanity |
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If it is a proposal to hobble the US and allow the rest of the world to mouth global warming platitudes and keep pumping out the carbon and methane in ever increasing amounts. While I agree there is a man made component to global warming, I also question whether or not global warming is anywhere near the problem presented. Objective facts suggest it is not.
I am for encouraging a transfer from a carbon energy sources to more solar, nuclear, tidal, geothermic, and wind. It will not replace oil, gas and coal. Not for many decades anyway, but it is something we should be pursuing now. We should also be drilling more, including ANWR.
Conservatives need to address environmental/conservation issues. I am glad McCain is doing that even if I disagree in the direction he his going. |
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hard anti-immigrants (i.e., VAPat, PasadenaPhil et al) who found themselves on the outs with the vast majority of Republicans who voted for John McCain, the next President of the United States will be either John McCain or Barack Obama ... take your pick ... a vote for any other candidate is just another useless protest vote ... people who live in the real world understand that.
As to McCain on global warming, of course, he is wrong on that issue ... but then, so are a lot of other Republicans. But I believe that as long as there are at least 41 Republican Senators who are not wrong on global warming, then there is not going to be any significant shift towards economy-killing new carbon regulations.
Besides, a couple of major trends are not exactly going the Gore-bots way these days:
1) the earth is COOLING ... it's going to very hard to justify punitive new regs when, like, um, the so called crisis doesn't exactly, um, uhhh, EXIST, y'know!
2) the current high cost of energy - which has almost nothing to do with global warming regs which, in the US, pretty much don't yet exist - is driving us towards the long-awaited economic feasibility of several non-petroleum technologies, including the Bussard Fusion Reactor which could, within ten years, make fossil fuels obsolete ... and new advances in lowering the costs of wind power, solar power, and the inevitable clamor for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is likely to make all this AGW crap more or less die the ignominous death it always so richly deserved.
McCain can say what he wants about AGW, but it's all about to become moot. |
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I found your comment crude yet humerous, except that McCain really believes this stuff. Every time he opens his mouth he gives more reasons for me to write in Mitt Romney's name in November. Unfortunately Phil you hit the nail on the head. |
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Hugh has become a complete McCain Sychophant. He agrees with everything John McCain does now. I guess Hugh's a maverick. Don't count on Hugh to support conservative principles once the winds change.
He quotes:
"McCain has occupied the center on this debate, and the GOP and conservatives should get over it and begin working to keep enough Republican senators in place to assure that President McCain's emphasis on a new generation of nuclear power plants becomes a reality, thus keeping cap-and-trade from becoming a suffocating blanket."
We conservatives must now get in line and contribute to an argument about the fallacy of global warming; we should admit it exists now because John McCain said so. This is from Hugh, the man who 3 months ago said on his show that McCain's campaign was a "charade that would be ending soon, right after Romney wins Michigan and Florida." But, Hugh's guy lost, and Hugh lost his conservative backbone in the process.
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this very minute over this cap and trade plan. Calls it by far the biggest and most complicated big government program in history BY FAR! He also mentioned a couple of times that his e-mails have been one-sidedly against McCain. Maybe I've underestimated Sean.
And Joe, your logic is so warped I don't even know where to go with it. You constantly take positions that are diametrically opposed to what your candidate is for and yet you support because..... just because. How far will you stretch your principles? Do you hae any personal integrity? McCain's goose is cooked now that Barr is in the race and yet he continues to spout one ultra-liberal big government proposal after another. |
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Why bother writing in Mitt, when you can punch a hole, or touch a screen and vote for Obama--it will yield the same result. I suppose your inner conscience might feel better, if your focus in on self appeasement. |
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Hugh,
Your next book should be called, "How I went from Conservative Talk Show Host/ Blogger to McCainiac in 15 days". (With Foreword from John McCain.) |
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Sorry about the crudeness but sometimes the only way to bring the point home about one vulgarity is to use a crude vulgarity that everyone understands. It's like I often say: you can't lie your way to virtue which is effectively what the cap and trade scheme represents. It is deceitful and solves nothing. |
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Hugh wants to win and he knows the consequences of not winning the 2008 election. This is where conservative thinkers hurt their causes, and where democrats never concede their candidate’s flaws. If ever there was a time too risky to stand on purest conservative thinking, it’s now. Hugh’s correct to keep focusing on the Obama’s liabilities rather than highlighting McCain’s flaws—leave that to the lefties. Anyone who has listened to or followed Hugh for any regularity knows he doesn’t agree whole heartedly with McCain. Only a recent listener or blogger would come to this absurd conclusion. |
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My parents are LEGAL immigrants. Does that help you? Would you like to correct your statement? |
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Hugh wants to win and he knows the consequences of not winning the 2008 election. This is where conservative thinkers hurt their causes, and where democrats never concede their candidate’s flaws. If ever there was a time too risky to stand on purest conservative thinking, it’s now. Hugh’s correct to keep focusing on the Obama’s liabilities rather than highlighting McCain’s flaws—leave that to the lefties. Anyone who has listened to or followed Hugh for any regularity knows he doesn’t agree whole heartedly with McCain. Only a recent listener or blogger would come to this absurd conclusion. |
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over to the libs???
I think every McCain pledged delegate who was pledged during the brief time that Sen. McCain was PRETENDING to be a Conservative- should withold their first round convention vote based on FRAUD.
Then when they are released on the second ballot they should all vote Duncan Hunter.
If you don't know him, Google him.
Warrior, defender of the Border, son currently serving in Iraq, handsome, well spoken, etc. |
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Hugh is a Republican soldier. He has made his feelings about McCain clear yet the also made clear that he would campaign for ANY Republican candidate. That makes Hugh a good Republican but conservative only when it serves the purposes of the GOP. That's fine. He has disclosed this all along. But if you think voting for an ultra-liberal (nutty actually) who happens to be a Republican is a good thing, you better sit this one out. Even as a non-conservative Republican, you should be repulsed by a party that has become a second-rate Democratic party. The GOP no longer stands for anything. It merely morphs around the contours of whatever candidate secures the nomination. We've just had 8 years of the Bush party and now face at least 4 years of the McCain party. That is not a party but a personality cult. For the sake of the country, we need to rattle the system by denying the one-party system our vote. If we don't do it, the GOP will disappear. If you don't know what I'm referring to, you need to get out more.
BTW, Hannity just went to commercial with the statement "home of the Dump Hillary Express and soon to be the Dump Obama Express and may soon be the None Of The Above Express. The momentum is building. It will be very lonely and frustrating to be a RINO very soon. |
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"It will be very lonely and frustrating to be a RINO very soon."
What shall we call our new party?? Could we have Duncan Hunter?? Please? |
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Jan,
Sure, I'd rather have McCain as commander in chief than Obama or Hillary, but I'm not going to turn a blind eye to McCain's leftist domestic agenda in the process. He doesn't get a free pass. Hugh might think he himself has enough power to influence many votes, so he converts any problem he has with McCain into a bashing Rev. Wright post. I know I won't influence the election especially in Illinois. Ignoring McCain's liberal faults is not a strategy, it's denial.
Hugh pretty much says that thanks to global warming alarmism we'll now get nuclear power, and he's willing to further strengthen the global warming falsehood for this end. Does Conservativism need to masquerade as something else now, like liberalism does? By the way, I've been listening/ reading Hugh througout the Gang of 14 debacle, the Illegal Immigration Bill, McCain's anti-torture crusade, etc., etc. Hugh was a strong voice against McCain at that time. It's silly for him to pretend none of this happened. Hugh has said over and over that McCain is a great American, Lousy Senator, horrible Republic. What's changed? |
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While I support McCain, I just told you I disagree with cap and trade and you accuse me of lacking integrity? While I support the GOP embracing enviromental and conservation oriented positions (within reason) and recognize McCain needs to win independents to win the election, I am against government expansions of power. I am for reasonable proposals that promote nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, etc. while at the same time promote more drilling (including ANWR).
If it makes you happier: I think this position is boneheaded by McCain because it costs him more votes than it gains him and it makes him look like he is Outbamaing Obama. That is a loser strategy.
Nevertheless, what happened to the truce in name calling? You broke it in about 24 hours. |
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What have you said in your lengthy rant that changes anything that I said? Hugh has made his positions clear all along, no need for me to re-hash the obvious. Let’s get to the real issue for me; McCain versus Obama. I’ll take McCain’s military knowledge, Senatorial experience, which he overwhelmingly ranks high on all policies most conservatives’ support, over Obama any day. If you want to deal solely with McCain’s exceptions that do not align fully with your view, that’s your right and your prerogative. Obama is simply not an option for me. I will not stay home and suck my thumb, and wish I had a better candidate. McCain’s going to get my vote, that’s the only real choice in 2008. As for Hannity, I suppose you’ve been hannitized. Can you hear the harp music playing in the background? |
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McCain has not changed.... and won't.
Hugh is a GOP partisan, he's not a conservative. He does what he thinks helps the GOP at the time. He ripped Tom Tancredo in an interview last year, called all of us sovereignty types "nutters". Then he turns around and leads the charge against McCain/Kennedy. ?????? |
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WRONG....
Hugh pounded on McCain for sometime. BUT Hugh doesn't want Obama.
Yeah it's that easy to understand.
PS. I don't like Mc Lame either. |
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I will be choosing other than R or D this time around. The RNC and DNC have become two divisions under the same ownership with the same agenda, open borders, no enforcement, carbon taxes, more government. I will vote against that. Pick any candidate on the ballot, don't write one in, it won't be counted. We need for the RNC to se where their votes went. |
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Cap-and-Trade is the extension of property rights over the capacity of the environment to absorb pollutants, just like we extend property rights over the limited portions of usable land. It is the right-wing solution to environmental problems. There are a lot of good, economical reasons to prefer emission taxes on CO2 emissions, as opposed to sulfer emissions, and a lot of reasons to oppose both, like that Global Warming is essentially a fraud, but endorsing Cap-and-Trade doesn't mean John McCain isn't a Conservative; it just means he's offering a Conservative solution to a problem that much of the country is concerned about. |
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Don't you wish we had a GOP nominee, instead of a D-lite? |
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Make up your mind. You support McCain and make arguments defending that that suggest you have no reason to support McCain. Your logic escapes me. This cap and trade bill is the biggest, most complicated and opaque government program EVER created. What does it take for you to feel like your candidate doesn't represent anything you believe in? Your immigration views are virtually the same as mine. The only thing I can conclude is that you some kind of emotional attachment to being a Republican because it defies logic to support someone who is diametrically opposite of everything you say you stand for. McCain is quietly having an Obama meltdown and once Barr gets started, we'll see just how much damage he has already done. I predict Barr will start off with 6-8% right out of the gate. That would be the end of McCain. What will he do? Recruit Hillary because of her recent momentum? |
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If you took that as a rant, you aren't very sure of yourself. Interesting too that you seem to have a disdain for conservative talk radio. You need to make a distinction between conservatives and Republicans. Conservatives are winning. Republicans are perpetuating self-extinction but want to blame it on conservatives. "If you don't vote for me, I'm going to kill myself! I'm crazy enough to do it!"
"Ok, do it. I don't get your point chief." |
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I'm in the tank for The Crawfish Party. He's promising free ice cream for everyone. |
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Cap and trade is the biggest of big government solutions for a problem that private industry is already spending hundreds of billions of dollars to resolve. The government's main role is to provide a capital friendly environment, like getting those wind mills built off of Hyannis or that solar string ribbon plant built without massive law suits in Devens MA. Call off the lawyers and stop demonizing the companies who are already incentivized to solve the problem. We DO NOT |
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We DO NOT need another gigantic new bureaucracy based on a quasi-religious mother earth cult. There is no science behind it so science and facts are not going to be able to coral that monster. It will be all emotion and no rationale. Just like these political discussions. Facts may be stubborn things but they are also very bothersome to the hyper-partisan politicos. |
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How did you draw the conclusion that I disdain conservative talk radio--you make incredible leaps based on a simple jab. I'm the one who is speaking directly. No need for your conjecture, I’ll share straight forward my thoughts and opinions. |
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You condescendingly stated that I was "Hannitized". Are you Kimberly's sister? You over-react to everything. Calm down. |
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Senator McCain should work to remove the restrictions on nuclear power. Then we could save our petroleum for the manufacturing of plastics and other synthetics critical to the economy.
Next, he should remove the restrictions on refineries so we could refine ALL the gasoline and diesel fuel we need in the US.
Then repeal all ethanol subsidies and start selling the corn (refined into corn syrup) as food to other countries.
These changes would create construction jobs and on-going operations and maintenance jobs. Additionally, the nuclear energy would decrease our "greenhouse" gas emissions while increasing the total electrical power available to our private sector.
BUT the government can't look at the small changes that would make the biggest impact on the problems. Then there would be proof that less government is better.
As Ronald Reagan said (to paraphrase), "The best thing I ever did was give the government back to the people". |
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nYou're like a talk show radio call-in, give enough time to speak, you’ll reveal your absurdity. I can’t speak for Kimberly; I don’t remember a single thread where she and I had “sister” opinions. I’m not sure I get the link you’re drawing between us!?! As for your suggestion that I calm down, I’ve responded to your posts directed to me definitively—how you choose to characterize the “tone” of my posts is your prerogative. |
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I will not give it up and get over it. I will vote for principles I believe in. The R besides a name means nothing now. moan and whine all you want but when republicans start being conservative again then I will vote for them and not before.
dirL |
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So now that we know each other, what are you doing Friday night. Want to catch dinner and a movie? |
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How 'bout Ben Stein's Expelled? I cringed when I saw my name in the Townhall column of blogger snippets, and regardless of your comments I decided I was simply going to write the word truce, and I consider your suggestion one in the same. |
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