Obama Laughs Off Pot Legalization Talk at Town Hall Meeting
.
Audacity chose to brush it all off as a joke.
AND HE READ THE QUESTION WRONG. FORGETTING THE FIRST AND LAST SENTENCE COMPLETELY.
WHICH WERE; ONE IN THIRTY AMERICANS IS IN JAIL. AND ENDED WITH "DO WE REALLY NEED THAT MANY VICTIMLESS CRIMINALS?"
Here is the excerpt from the transcript: NO REFERENCE TO THE OPENING AND CLOSING SENTENCES. TAKE HIS SIDE, BUT YOU WON'T MAKE SENSE. HE SHOWED HIS TRUE COLORS AGAIN. HE DELIBERATELY MISREAD THE QUESTION FOR THE SAKE OF THE STUPID JOKE HE HAD IN MIND. AND HE GOT THE LAUGHS.
We took votes about which questions were going to be asked and ... three point five million people voted. I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy — (laughter) — and job creation. And I don't know what this says about the online audience — (laughter) — but I just want .
I GOTTA TELL YUH, ALL SERIOUSNESS ASIDE, NO, I KID... (THE BASTARD GOT SIDETRACKED BY THE LAUGHTER. HIS REAL AMBITION)
.. this was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy — (laughter) — to grow our economy. (Applause.)
HE SHOULD HAVE ADDED, " BUT SEROUSLY, QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ECONOMY REALLY ARE FOR EXPERTS. ALTHOUGH ENDING THE WAR ON DRUGS AND TAXING THEM INSTEAD, AS WELL AS SAVING MONEY ON INCARCERATION WOULD CREATE REVENUE. AND IT DOESN'T TAKE AN EXPERT ECONOMIST TO COUNT. THERE ARE ECONOMISTS WHO FAVOR DECRIMINILIZATION AS A SOURCE OF REVENUE. AS FOR VICTIMLESS CRIMES, THAT IS A VERY IMPORTANT ISSUE WHICH WE TAKE VERY SERIOUSLY."
BUT HE DIDN'T SAY THAT.
AND THE AUDIENCE DIDN'T SEEM TO MIND. THEY JUST L O V E THE GUY. WELL I DON'T. HALF THE COUNTRY DOESN'T. WE ARE VERY DISAPPOINTED IN HIS OFFHAND MANNER... (I AM, CHOKED WITH ANGER laughter) HE LOVES THAT LAUGH TRACK. I HAVE NEVER HEARD A PRESIDENT GET MORE RIM SHOTS. IT HAS GONE TO HIS HEAD. I DON'T THINK IT EFFECTS POLICY, BUT I DO CONSIDER IT TO BE UNDIGNIFIED AND POTENTIALLY PERNICIOUS.
IN HIS COLD WAY, INSPIRED BY HIS COMEDY STYLINGS, HE SKIPPED THE HUMAN PART OF THE THE QUESTION. OBVIOUSLY ANY SUGGESTION ABOUT ECONOMICS IS OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE . THAT IS FOR EXPERTS. BUT THE ISSUE OF VICTIMLESS CRIMES WAS REAL AND IMPORTANT, AND POOR MR. OBAMA JUST ACTED LIKE THE BASTARD HE IS REVEALING HIMSELF TO BE.
I REALLY THINK THAT IF YOU LOSE YOUR MIND BECAUSE YOU THINK OF A JOKE, YOU ARE A CREEP.
PEOPLE CHANGE. HE'S A ROOKIE. HE IS HAVING TOO MUCH FUN AND THINKS IT'S COOL TO ENJOY HIMSELF AND SHOW OFF. HIS SARCASM IS DISMISSIVE, AND HIS MISUSE OF COMEDY IS A BETRAYAL. UNPROFESSIONAL.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Inconvenient Truths By Christopher Hitchens
Inconvenient Truths
The media's disingenuous failure to state the obvious.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Dec. 8, 2008, at 12:08 PM ET
The explosion that killed former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri in Beirut, 2005The obvious is sometimes the most difficult thing to discern, and few things are more amusing than the efforts of our journals of record to keep "open" minds about the self-evident, and thus to create mysteries when the real task of reportage is to dispel them. An all-time achiever in this category is Fernanda Santos of the New York Times, who managed to write from Bombay on Nov. 27 that the Chabad Jewish center in that city was "an unlikely target of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed a series of bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's commercial center." Continuing to keep her brow heavily furrowed with the wrinkles of doubt and uncertainty, Santos went on to say that "[i]t is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
This same puzzled expression is currently being widely worn on the faces of all those who wonder if Pakistan is implicated in the "bloody coordinated" assault on the heart of Bombay. To get an additional if oblique perspective on this riddle that is an enigma wrapped inside a mystery, take a look at Joshua Hammer's excellent essay in the current Atlantic. The question in its title—"[Is Syria] Getting Away With Murder?"—is at least asked only at the beginning of the article and not at the end of it.
Here are the known facts: If you are a Lebanese politician or journalist or public figure, and you criticize the role played by the government of Syria in your country's internal affairs, your car will explode when you turn the ignition key, or you will be ambushed and shot or blown up by a bomb or land mine as you drive through the streets of Beirut or along the roads that lead to the mountains. The explosives and weapons used, and the skilled tactics employed, will often be reminiscent of the sort of resources available only to the secret police and army of a state machine. But I think in fairness I must stress that this is all that is known for sure. You criticize the Assad dictatorship, and either your vehicle detonates or your head is blown off. Over time, this has happened to a large and varied number of people, ranging from Sunni statesman Rafik Hariri to Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt to Communist spokesman George Hawi. One would not wish to be a "conspiracy theorist" and allege that there was any necessary connection between the criticisms in the first place and the deplorably terminal experiences in the second.
Hammer's article is good for a laugh in that it shows just how much trouble the international community will go to precisely in order not to implicate the Assad family in this string of unfortunate events. After all, does Damascus not hold the keys to peace in the region? Might not young Bashar Assad, who managed to become president after the peaceful death by natural causes of his father, become annoyed and petulant and even uncooperative if he were found to have been commissioning assassinations? Could the fabled "process" suffer if a finger of indictment were pointed at him? At the offices of the long-established and by now almost historic United Nations inquiry into the Hariri murder, feet are evidently being dragged because of considerations like these, and Hammer describes the resulting atmosphere very well.
In rather the same way, the international community is deciding to be, shall we say, nonjudgmental in the matter of Pakistani involvement in the Bombay unpleasantness. Everything from the cell phones to the training appears to be traceable to the aboveground surrogates of an ostensibly banned group known as Lashkar-i-Taiba, which practices what it preaches and preaches holy war against Hindus, as well as Jews, Christians, atheists, and other elements of the "impure." Lashkar is well-known to be a bastard child—and by no means a disowned one, either—of the Pakistani security services. But how inconvenient if this self-evident and obvious fact should have to be faced.
How inconvenient, for one thing, for the government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, a new and untried politician who may not exactly be in charge of his own country or of its armed forces but who nonetheless knows how to jingle those same keys of peace. How inconvenient, too, for all those who assume that the Afghan war is the "good" war when they see Pakistani army units being withdrawn from the Afghan frontier and deployed against democratic India (which has always been Pakistan's "real" enemy).
The Syrian and Pakistani situations are a great deal more similar than most people have any interest in pointing out. In both cases, there is a state within the state that exerts the real parallel power and possesses the reserve strength. In both cases, official "secularism" is a mask (as it also was with the Iraqi Baathists) for the state sponsorship of theocratic and cross-border gangster groups like Lashkar and Hezbollah. In both cases, an unknown quantity of nuclear assets are at the disposal of the official and banana republic state and also very probably of elements within the unofficial and criminal and terrorist one. (It is of huge and unremarked significance that Syria did not take the recent Israeli bombing of its hidden reactor to the United Nations or make any other public complaint.) Given these grim and worsening states of affairs, perhaps it is only small wonder that we take consolation in our illusions and in comforting doubts—such as the childlike wonder about whether Jews are deliberately targeted or just unlucky with time and place. This would all be vaguely funny if it wasn't headed straight toward our own streets.
The media's disingenuous failure to state the obvious.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Dec. 8, 2008, at 12:08 PM ET
The explosion that killed former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri in Beirut, 2005The obvious is sometimes the most difficult thing to discern, and few things are more amusing than the efforts of our journals of record to keep "open" minds about the self-evident, and thus to create mysteries when the real task of reportage is to dispel them. An all-time achiever in this category is Fernanda Santos of the New York Times, who managed to write from Bombay on Nov. 27 that the Chabad Jewish center in that city was "an unlikely target of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed a series of bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's commercial center." Continuing to keep her brow heavily furrowed with the wrinkles of doubt and uncertainty, Santos went on to say that "[i]t is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
This same puzzled expression is currently being widely worn on the faces of all those who wonder if Pakistan is implicated in the "bloody coordinated" assault on the heart of Bombay. To get an additional if oblique perspective on this riddle that is an enigma wrapped inside a mystery, take a look at Joshua Hammer's excellent essay in the current Atlantic. The question in its title—"[Is Syria] Getting Away With Murder?"—is at least asked only at the beginning of the article and not at the end of it.
Here are the known facts: If you are a Lebanese politician or journalist or public figure, and you criticize the role played by the government of Syria in your country's internal affairs, your car will explode when you turn the ignition key, or you will be ambushed and shot or blown up by a bomb or land mine as you drive through the streets of Beirut or along the roads that lead to the mountains. The explosives and weapons used, and the skilled tactics employed, will often be reminiscent of the sort of resources available only to the secret police and army of a state machine. But I think in fairness I must stress that this is all that is known for sure. You criticize the Assad dictatorship, and either your vehicle detonates or your head is blown off. Over time, this has happened to a large and varied number of people, ranging from Sunni statesman Rafik Hariri to Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt to Communist spokesman George Hawi. One would not wish to be a "conspiracy theorist" and allege that there was any necessary connection between the criticisms in the first place and the deplorably terminal experiences in the second.
Hammer's article is good for a laugh in that it shows just how much trouble the international community will go to precisely in order not to implicate the Assad family in this string of unfortunate events. After all, does Damascus not hold the keys to peace in the region? Might not young Bashar Assad, who managed to become president after the peaceful death by natural causes of his father, become annoyed and petulant and even uncooperative if he were found to have been commissioning assassinations? Could the fabled "process" suffer if a finger of indictment were pointed at him? At the offices of the long-established and by now almost historic United Nations inquiry into the Hariri murder, feet are evidently being dragged because of considerations like these, and Hammer describes the resulting atmosphere very well.
In rather the same way, the international community is deciding to be, shall we say, nonjudgmental in the matter of Pakistani involvement in the Bombay unpleasantness. Everything from the cell phones to the training appears to be traceable to the aboveground surrogates of an ostensibly banned group known as Lashkar-i-Taiba, which practices what it preaches and preaches holy war against Hindus, as well as Jews, Christians, atheists, and other elements of the "impure." Lashkar is well-known to be a bastard child—and by no means a disowned one, either—of the Pakistani security services. But how inconvenient if this self-evident and obvious fact should have to be faced.
How inconvenient, for one thing, for the government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, a new and untried politician who may not exactly be in charge of his own country or of its armed forces but who nonetheless knows how to jingle those same keys of peace. How inconvenient, too, for all those who assume that the Afghan war is the "good" war when they see Pakistani army units being withdrawn from the Afghan frontier and deployed against democratic India (which has always been Pakistan's "real" enemy).
The Syrian and Pakistani situations are a great deal more similar than most people have any interest in pointing out. In both cases, there is a state within the state that exerts the real parallel power and possesses the reserve strength. In both cases, official "secularism" is a mask (as it also was with the Iraqi Baathists) for the state sponsorship of theocratic and cross-border gangster groups like Lashkar and Hezbollah. In both cases, an unknown quantity of nuclear assets are at the disposal of the official and banana republic state and also very probably of elements within the unofficial and criminal and terrorist one. (It is of huge and unremarked significance that Syria did not take the recent Israeli bombing of its hidden reactor to the United Nations or make any other public complaint.) Given these grim and worsening states of affairs, perhaps it is only small wonder that we take consolation in our illusions and in comforting doubts—such as the childlike wonder about whether Jews are deliberately targeted or just unlucky with time and place. This would all be vaguely funny if it wasn't headed straight toward our own streets.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
Let's see. . . the best actress in the world reprising her 1998 Oscar-nominated breakout role. I think I'll check it out.
.
Geoffrey Rush returns to join Cate Blanchett, and they're joined by Clive Owen and Samantha Morton this time. Here's the bit from ComingSoon.net:
Reprising the roles they originated in seven-time Academy Award®-nominated "Elizabeth," Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush return for a gripping historical thriller laced with treachery and romance--"Elizabeth: The Golden Age." Joining them in the epic is Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh, a dashing seafarer and newfound temptation for Elizabeth.
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" finds Queen Elizabeth I (Oscar®-winner Cate Blanchett) facing bloodlust for her throne and familial betrayal. Growing keenly aware of the changing religious and political tides of late 16th century Europe, Elizabeth finds her rule openly challenged by the Spanish King Philip II (Jordi Molla)--with his powerful army and sea-dominating armada--determined to restore England to Catholicism.
Preparing to go to war to defend her empire, Elizabeth struggles to balance ancient royal duties with an unexpected vulnerability in her love for Raleigh. But he remains forbidden for a queen who has sworn body and soul to her country. Unable and unwilling to pursue her love, Elizabeth encourages her favorite lady-in-waiting, Bess (Abbie Cornish), to befriend Raleigh to keep him near. But this strategy forces Elizabeth to observe their growing intimacy.
As she charts her course abroad, her trusted advisor, Sir Francis Walsingham (Academy Award® winner Geoffrey Rush), continues his masterful puppetry of Elizabeth's court at home--and her campaign to solidify absolute power. Through an intricate spy network, Walsingham uncovers an assassination plot that could topple the throne. But as he unmasks traitors that may include Elizabeth's own cousin Mary Stuart (Samantha Morton), he unknowingly sets England up for destruction.
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" tells the thrilling tale of an era...the story of one woman's crusade to control love, crush enemies and secure her position as a beloved icon of the western world.
Elizabeth is a 1998 film loosely based on the early reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The film was written by Michael Hirst and directed by Shekhar Kapur. It stars Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes, Christopher Eccleston, and Richard Attenborough. It was the final film of acclaimed British actor Sir John Gielgud. It also stars a 12-year-old Lily Allen as a lady in waiting, Manchester United legend Eric Cantona as the French ambassador, future Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston as the Duke of Norfolk, and Daniel Craig, who would later portray James Bond, as a member of the Vatican who is heavily involved in the film's central plot. It was given an R rating for violence, nudity, horrific images, and language.
A sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age was released by Universal Studios on October 12, 2007.
Friday, April 24, 2009
FRENCH ECONOMIC STRIKE
At an electricity substation on a bleak industrial estate north of Paris a masked union militant is preparing to deprive a neighbourhood of power.
His colleague is outside, dragging nervously on a roll-up cigarette while keeping a lookout for police or security guards. “Get a move on,” he says. “And then let’s get out of here.”
A switch is pulled down, the door of the sabotaged transformer is locked and the two activists — employees of EDF, the French state electricity supplier — drive off.
In their wake hundreds of houses and a handful of businesses in Montigny-lès-Cormeilles are left without electricity for much of the morning.
Related Links
Blockades bring chaos to land and sea
Uneasy Sarkozy sees angry workers turn to bossnapping
It was the second time in a week that blackouts had hit the Paris region as striking gas and electricity workers adopted radical tactics to support their call for a 10 per cent pay rise and an end to outsourcing of jobs.
They are denounced as industrial saboteurs by the Government and face disciplinary action and prosecution, but say they are determined to press ahead with what they portray as a struggle against free-market forces.
After failing to prevent the partial privatisations of EDF and GDF, the gas supplier, they believe that the tide has turned in their favour because of the recession.
Redundancy plans have caused violent protests in private sector companies, left-wing students have blocked universities and unions are planning a demonstration on Labour Day. “There is a risk of revolution,” Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister, said.
For Stéphane Miliadis, a representative of the Confédération Générale du Travail union at the EDF plant in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, near Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, it offers a golden opportunity.
“The Government is losing control,” he said. “So now is the moment to push back the capitalist logic which has crept into the company.”
The movement got off to a slow start. “We’ve been on strike for three weeks but at first no one paid any attention at all,” he said. “It was only when some of the guys started cutting the electricity and gas that things got moving.”
The militants armed with a map showing the substations and keys to the locks can shut down power to thousands of homes in a few minutes.
Last Thursday 66,500 EDF customers lost their electricity supply, some for several hours. In Douai, northern France, two patients in intensive care had to be moved when a hospital lost power for 40 minutes.
In the Paris region the Grand-Val shopping centre suffered the same fate. “We had to turn away customers from all 48 shops,” Félix Crespo, a technical manager at the centre, said.
A bakery worker told The Times that she had been late for work “because I have an electric alarm clock and of course it didn’t go off”.
This week the activists sought to win public support by switching 350,000 customers from peak to off-peak tariffs — a 50 per cent saving. They also restored power to hundreds of households that were cut off by EDF because they had failed to pay their bills.
The power cuts have continued. In Montigny-lès-Cormeilles the saboteurs took action against EDF offices and several hundred homes were affected. A home-help assistant said: “I look after a 92-year-old woman and this sort of thing means she hasn’t got a proper meal because there was nothing to cook it with.”
History of revolt
— The revolutionary movement that shook France between 1789 and 1799 rejected the social and economic inequalities of the ancien régime, overthrew the Government and abolished the monarchy
— Popular revolt in 1848 led to the creation of the Second Republic and established the principle of the right to work
— In 1920, strikes on the railways forced the Army to drive trains to get food around the country
— The de Gaulle administration's deployment of police against student rioters in 1968 provoked a widespread revolt, ending in widescale reform of the education system
— In 2005, rioting among poor African and Arab immigrant communities prompted the Government to impose a three-month state of emergency
— In 2006, students nationwide protested against an attempt to make it easier for French companies to sack employees under the age of 26. The law was withdrawn
— “Bossnapping” has become a popular technique in French labour disputes. Striking workers take their bosses hostage until they agree to demands
His colleague is outside, dragging nervously on a roll-up cigarette while keeping a lookout for police or security guards. “Get a move on,” he says. “And then let’s get out of here.”
A switch is pulled down, the door of the sabotaged transformer is locked and the two activists — employees of EDF, the French state electricity supplier — drive off.
In their wake hundreds of houses and a handful of businesses in Montigny-lès-Cormeilles are left without electricity for much of the morning.
Related Links
Blockades bring chaos to land and sea
Uneasy Sarkozy sees angry workers turn to bossnapping
It was the second time in a week that blackouts had hit the Paris region as striking gas and electricity workers adopted radical tactics to support their call for a 10 per cent pay rise and an end to outsourcing of jobs.
They are denounced as industrial saboteurs by the Government and face disciplinary action and prosecution, but say they are determined to press ahead with what they portray as a struggle against free-market forces.
After failing to prevent the partial privatisations of EDF and GDF, the gas supplier, they believe that the tide has turned in their favour because of the recession.
Redundancy plans have caused violent protests in private sector companies, left-wing students have blocked universities and unions are planning a demonstration on Labour Day. “There is a risk of revolution,” Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister, said.
For Stéphane Miliadis, a representative of the Confédération Générale du Travail union at the EDF plant in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, near Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, it offers a golden opportunity.
“The Government is losing control,” he said. “So now is the moment to push back the capitalist logic which has crept into the company.”
The movement got off to a slow start. “We’ve been on strike for three weeks but at first no one paid any attention at all,” he said. “It was only when some of the guys started cutting the electricity and gas that things got moving.”
The militants armed with a map showing the substations and keys to the locks can shut down power to thousands of homes in a few minutes.
Last Thursday 66,500 EDF customers lost their electricity supply, some for several hours. In Douai, northern France, two patients in intensive care had to be moved when a hospital lost power for 40 minutes.
In the Paris region the Grand-Val shopping centre suffered the same fate. “We had to turn away customers from all 48 shops,” Félix Crespo, a technical manager at the centre, said.
A bakery worker told The Times that she had been late for work “because I have an electric alarm clock and of course it didn’t go off”.
This week the activists sought to win public support by switching 350,000 customers from peak to off-peak tariffs — a 50 per cent saving. They also restored power to hundreds of households that were cut off by EDF because they had failed to pay their bills.
The power cuts have continued. In Montigny-lès-Cormeilles the saboteurs took action against EDF offices and several hundred homes were affected. A home-help assistant said: “I look after a 92-year-old woman and this sort of thing means she hasn’t got a proper meal because there was nothing to cook it with.”
History of revolt
— The revolutionary movement that shook France between 1789 and 1799 rejected the social and economic inequalities of the ancien régime, overthrew the Government and abolished the monarchy
— Popular revolt in 1848 led to the creation of the Second Republic and established the principle of the right to work
— In 1920, strikes on the railways forced the Army to drive trains to get food around the country
— The de Gaulle administration's deployment of police against student rioters in 1968 provoked a widespread revolt, ending in widescale reform of the education system
— In 2005, rioting among poor African and Arab immigrant communities prompted the Government to impose a three-month state of emergency
— In 2006, students nationwide protested against an attempt to make it easier for French companies to sack employees under the age of 26. The law was withdrawn
— “Bossnapping” has become a popular technique in French labour disputes. Striking workers take their bosses hostage until they agree to demands
Gingrich: climate bill will punish Americans
Gingrich: climate bill will punish Americans
Apr 24 02:50 PM US/Eastern
By DINA CAPPIELLO and H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says a Democratic proposal to limit global warming pollution will "punish the American people" with higher energy costs and lost jobs.
Gingrich appeared before a House subcommittee writing a broad energy and climate bill aimed at cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by mid-century.
Gingrich, a leading Republican voice who has indicated he may seek the presidency in 2012, criticized the Democrats' cap-and-trade climate proposal. He called it "an energy tax" that will increase Americans' cost of living and kill jobs.
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California accused Gingrich of trying to scare people into opposing action on climate change. Waxman argued the bill is designed to contain energy cost increases.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP)—Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says a Democratic proposal to limit global warming pollution will "punish the American people" with higher energy costs and lost jobs.
Gingrich appeared before a House subcommittee writing a broad energy and climate bill aimed at cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by mid-century.
Gingrich, a leading Republican voice who has indicated he may seek the presidency in 2012, criticized the Democrats' cap-and-trade climate proposal. He called it "an energy tax" that will increase Americans' cost of living and kill jobs.
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California accused Gingrich of trying to scare people into opposing action on climate change. Waxman argued the bill is designed to contain energy cost increases.
Apr 24 02:50 PM US/Eastern
By DINA CAPPIELLO and H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says a Democratic proposal to limit global warming pollution will "punish the American people" with higher energy costs and lost jobs.
Gingrich appeared before a House subcommittee writing a broad energy and climate bill aimed at cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by mid-century.
Gingrich, a leading Republican voice who has indicated he may seek the presidency in 2012, criticized the Democrats' cap-and-trade climate proposal. He called it "an energy tax" that will increase Americans' cost of living and kill jobs.
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California accused Gingrich of trying to scare people into opposing action on climate change. Waxman argued the bill is designed to contain energy cost increases.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP)—Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says a Democratic proposal to limit global warming pollution will "punish the American people" with higher energy costs and lost jobs.
Gingrich appeared before a House subcommittee writing a broad energy and climate bill aimed at cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by mid-century.
Gingrich, a leading Republican voice who has indicated he may seek the presidency in 2012, criticized the Democrats' cap-and-trade climate proposal. He called it "an energy tax" that will increase Americans' cost of living and kill jobs.
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California accused Gingrich of trying to scare people into opposing action on climate change. Waxman argued the bill is designed to contain energy cost increases.
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