Bankruptcy Now

We laughed at his "We don't need to drill if we just keep our tires inflated" gaffe; we scoffed at his "Luddite" anti-energy platform.  Now, on Election Eve, another long-lost dose of Barack Hoover Obama energy policy "straight talk" surfaces.

Somehow, it just doesn't seem all that humorous anymore:

Patterico and Beldar have a fuller transcript:

“I voted against the Clear Skies Bill. In fact, I was the deciding vote -- despite the fact that I’m a coal state and that half my state thought that I had thoroughly betrayed them. Because I think clean air is critical and global warming is critical.

“But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion. Because the fact of the matter is, is that right now we are getting a lot of our energy from coal. And China is building a coal-powered plant once a week. So what we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon. And how can we sequester that carbon and capture it. If we can’t, then we’re gonna still be working on alternatives.

“But ... let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade policy in place that is as aggressive if not more aggressive than anyone out there. I was the first call for 100% auction on the cap and trade system. Which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases that was 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 are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted-down caps that are 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 that 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 an ideological matter, as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it, that I think is the right approach. The same with respect to nuclear. Right now, we don’t know how to store nuclear waste wisely and we don’t know how to deal with some of the safety issues that remain. And so it’s wildly expensive to pursue nuclear energy. But I tell you what, if we could figure out how to store it safely, then I think most of us would say that might be a pretty good deal.

“The point is, if we set rigorous standards for the allowable emissions, then we can allow the market to determine and technology and entrepreneurs to pursue, what the best approach is to take, as opposed to us saying at the outset, here are the winners that we’re picking and maybe we pick wrong and maybe we pick right.”

No coal?  No nuclear?  We already know he won't drill for domestic oil and that he sure does want to "pick the winners" of his energy policy sweepstakes ("renewables") by requiring that ten percent of our energy come from those sources in just the next four years.  The only way that outcome can practically be achieved is by reducing the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy.  A greenstremist/global warming fetishist cap & trade scheme that would bankrupt the coal and nuclear industries would fit into that equation quite nicely.

We also know that Lucifer wants to reduce U.S. electricity demand by a whopping 15% by 2020.  His blueprint for that "achievement" was also offered in this same San Francisco Chronicle interview:

What's the most effective way to depress demand for a product?  Make it ruinously expensive.  Plus, as an added bonus, it would provide the ruling Donk junta with another gift-wrapped excuse to demonize the "greedy profiteering" of whatever scattered segments of the energy sector that had not yet been nationalized - and set the stage for rectifying that "oversight".  After which would follow even bigger shortages, as the Lord Barack and his party bulldozed America technologically (if not politically) back to the eighteenth century.

How do you sell the American public on getting gouged for eight trillion dollars over the next dozen years for a purported technological payoff that will be unaffordable by definition and an even more dubious climatological payoff that was a hoax to begin with?  Simple - you don't tell them before Election Day, only after which you reveal your "plan to radically transform our entire economy as part of some enviro-utopian pipe-dream."  And by "transform," you mean "disembowel."

Good thing Barracuda was paying attention:

Responding to the discovery of an audio tape of an old Barak Obama interview Sunday, Sarah Palin accused the Democrat of “talking about bankrupting the coal industry,” as she campaigned through the coal regions of Ohio.

“He said that, sure, if the industry wants to build coal-fired power plants, then they can go ahead and try, he says, but they can do it only in a way that will bankrupt the coal industry, and he's comfortable letting that happen,” Palin said. “And you got to listen to the tape.”

The audiotape Palin referred to was recorded by the San Francisco Chronicle in a January 17 interview and uncovered by the Drudge Report.

“Why is the audiotape just now surfacing?” Palin said, according to CBS News.

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Liberal media!”

“This interview was given to San Francisco folks many, many months ago,” Palin said. “You should have known about this, so that you would have better decision-making information as you go into the voting booth.”

That IS the role of a free press, actually.  Which is why freedom of the press is enshrined in the First Amendment.  I doubt the Founders ever imagined a mass psychosis like Obamanationalism would ever completely subvert the "watchdogs of government" that are supposed to keep a sovereign people from getting bilked out of the Republic they bequeathed them.

Is this latest ought-be-devastating revelation too little, too late?  Or might it be the nail in Barry O's coffin?  We'll soon find out.