Huckabee: End energy consumption by 2010!

[SirNitram]

From the CBS Evening News. Question: “Do you think the risks of climate change are at all overblown?”

MIKE HUCKABEE: I don’t know. I mean, the honest answer for me, scientifically, is I don’t know. But here’s one thing I do know, that we ought to not let this become this big political football and point of argument. We all ought to agree that we live on this planet as guests…. I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is.

Either Huckabee's creationist friends just broke the second law of thermodynamics, or he's expecting the Rapture awfully soon.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What I think he means is reliance on foreign energy sources, rather than, y'know, all drop dead by 2010.

A commendable if somewhat tricky proposal given how much Americans love to waste just about everything.

[Big Phil]

I wonder how serious he is about this? There is something to the quote: "Only Nixon can go to China."

[Kuja]

*headdesk*

[Siege]

Gentlemen, a War on Energy Consumption is in order.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

You know it's bad when the Dems voluntarily hold their fire on Huck and Drudge Report actually tells it like it is. Huck's a dead duck who may yet self-destruct anyway before the Dems get their chance!

[CaptainChewbacca]

Perhaps in the future, a euphemism for candidates killing their chances with their own words will be:

"Hucking yourself".

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Perhaps in the future, a euphemism for candidates killing their chances with their own words will be:

"Hucking yourself".

We already have the Dean Scream.

[SirNitram]

Perhaps in the future, a euphemism for candidates killing their chances with their own words will be:

"Hucking yourself".

We already have the Dean Scream.

I think we ought to give a distinction.

'Hucking' is when you kill yourself by being a moron.

'Deaning' is when the media replays something that hurts your odds end to end until it's a form of brainwashing(What? Repitition is the core of brainwashing.).

[Xisiqomelir]

Gentlemen, a War on Energy Consumption is in order.

If the Garbagement spent 1/16 as much on this as they did on their useless Wars on Terror/Drugs, I'd be a lot more sanguine about PO.

[Siege]

If the Garbagement spent 1/16 as much on this as they did on their useless Wars on Terror/Drugs, I'd be a lot more sanguine about PO.

As long as they lock up SUV-drivers in dubious camps well away from CONUS, I'm game .

[Rye]

Thankfully, the apocalypse will happen in 5 years, so this will be easy to accomplish.

[FSTargetDrone]

Perhaps in the future, a euphemism for candidates killing their chances with their own words will be:

"Hucking yourself".

We already have the Dean Scream.

Bah, the Dean "Scream" was debunked 3 years ago:

The "Dean Scream" -- The Version of Reality You Didn't See.. or Hear on TV

By Diane Sawyer

Original from: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_2 ... 4dean.html

(New York-ABC News, January 29, 2004) _ It was the scream Howard Dean says became famous after the media played it nearly 700 times in a few days. Not only that, his camp adds, what we heard on the air was not a reflection of the way it sounded in the room.

After my interview with Dean and his wife in which I played the tape again -- in fact played it to them -- I noticed that on that tape he's holding a hand-held microphone. One designed to filter out the background noise. It isolates your voice, just like it does to Charlie Gibson and me when we have big crowds in the morning. The crowds are deafening to us standing there.

But the viewer at home hears only our voice.

So, we collected some other tapes from Dean's speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage. We also asked the reporters who were there to help us replicate what they experienced in the room.

Reena Singh, ABC News Dean campaign reporter: "What the cameras didn't capture was the crowd."

Garance Franke-Ruta, Senior Editor, American Prospect: "As he spoke, the audience got louder and louder and I found it somewhat difficult to hear him."

Dean's boisterous countdown of the upcoming primaries as we all heard it on TV was isolated, when in fact he was shouting over the roaring crowd.

And what about the scream as we all heard it? In the room, the so-called scream couldn't really be heard at all. Again, he was yelling along with the crowd.

Neal Gabler, Senior Fellow, Lear Center USA: "When you're talking about visuals, context is everything. So, you've got a situation in which you have what I'd call the televised version of reality, which is not the same as the actual reality in room. You know in a situation like this, no one takes responsibility."

Yes, he screamed, but it wasn't the crazy-as-a-rabid-chimp scream. He couldn't hear himself or be heard in the room.

[Pablo Sanchez]

You know it's bad when the Dems voluntarily hold their fire on Huck and Drudge Report actually tells it like it is. Huck's a dead duck who may yet self-destruct anyway before the Dems get their chance!

Huckabee is good for Democrats because his inevitable defeat has the potential to be demoralizing for his fundamentalist base. If he puts on a strong showing in the run-up to the convention but loses the nomination to Romney or Giuliani (the most likely winners), his supporters may well desert the ticket for the general election, which would allow the Democrats to gain ground everywhere. If he manages to get the nomination, he'll probably do about as well as Goldwater in '64--a righteous stomping with all kinds of reverse-coattail effects, which could demoralize the fundamentalist base of the GOP for years. The first genuine fundie candidate going down to ignominious defeat would be a beautiful sight.

[Gil Hamilton]

Yeah, that's true. They've been buttered up for a while that Their Support makes or breaks elections. If they lose one with a stooge like Huckabee, it'll sting a good bit.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I was thinking he was even more fundamentalist and going for the amish vote. Yes, everyone, Huck wants you to go back to horses like god intended.

[Uraniun235]

"Within a decade" suggests to me not "within this decade" but "within the next ten years".

Although that's still a tall order.

[SirNitram]

"Within a decade" suggests to me not "within this decade" but "within the next ten years".

Although that's still a tall order.

I dunno. I think you could destroy every living person and automated machine in the USA in ten years if you put your back into it.

[K. A. Pital]

The job is simpler, destroy all machines and most people will just die on their own. So clearly the goal is realistic.

[Pablo Sanchez]

The job is simpler, destroy all machines and most people will just die on their own. So clearly the goal is realistic.

Yes, I too am voting for Ned Ludd.

One question that I've just been is, what will the money interests in the GOP, the ones who actually construct policy and front most of the cash that keeps the Republicans going, do if Huckabee is the nominee? He's quite obviously an inept goon--to cite the most popular recent example, he hadn't even heard about the new Iran NIE, the biggest foreign policy news story in months, for several days after it broke.

It's quite possible for someone like this to get the Republican nomination. So what will the cash money Republicans do in that situation? Will they back him full strength purely on the basis of him being a Republican, or will they back away from him?

[Imperial Overlord]

It's quite possible for someone like this to get the Republican nomination. So what will the cash money Republicans do in that situation? Will they back him full strength purely on the basis of him being a Republican, or will they back away from him?

Lots of Democrats aren't afraid of taking corporate money. Hillary, for example, has gotten very cozy with the American health care industry and gotten big bucks from them. Having influence over a Democrat with sufficiently flexible principles will work out pretty good for them while the Republican party spill its own blood and reorganizes itself.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Any violent crime is pardonable if you repent for JEEEEEEEEEEZUS!!!111!!11~

Misguided Mercy
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Posted on Dec 12, 2007

By Joe Conason

Having vaulted into the front ranks of the Republican presidential contenders, Mike Huckabee is now more than an amiable curiosity—and his decade as governor of Arkansas will be scrutinized carefully for clues to his character and temperament. He has established an admirable persona as an evangelical conservative who displays none of the rancor that permeates the religious right. But when he says that his faith defines his life and that there can be no separation of religion from government, what does that mean in practice?

It isn’t clear how Huckabee’s Baptist outlook influenced his decisions on taxes, education or transportation, but his record in granting clemency and pardons demonstrates the dangers of religious zealotry in power.

The most infamous case of Huckabee’s misplaced mercy involves a rapist and murderer named Wayne Dumond, now deceased, who originally went to prison in Arkansas for raping a distant cousin of Bill Clinton’s. Eventually that case developed into an obsession among President Clinton’s enemies on the right, who spread the notion that Dumond had been imprisoned unjustly and brutalized by the “Clinton machine” and should be released.

When Huckabee became governor, he supported and evidently engineered a parole for Dumond, winning applause from the Republican right—and indirectly causing the death of a young woman whom the former prisoner later raped and killed in Missouri. Dumond died in prison, under suspicion that he had murdered at least one other woman after his release, and Huckabee has sought to shift the blame for that bad outcome onto others.

To rebut critics of the Dumond fiasco and prove he is tough on crime, Huckabee notes that he signed off on 16 executions as governor. But he also used his authority to grant clemency to others found guilty of equally heinous crimes. Indeed, he granted more commutations and pardons than any governor in the previous 40 years. While many of those decisions were surely wise and just, especially when they meant reducing excessive penalties under the drug laws, some of his pardons have raised considerable controversy in Arkansas.

Influenced by his fellow pastors, as well as by friends and relatives of inmates, Huckabee appears to have practiced what might be called “Christian cronyism.”

The worst example of that syndrome, chronicled in detail by the crusading journalists at Arkansas’ The Leader newspaper, concerned a killer named Glen Green, sentenced to prison for life after confessing to the savage rape and murder of a teenage girl. An Air Force sergeant, Green had bludgeoned the woman with nunchucks, violated her almost lifeless body, run over her with his car and dumped her in a bayou. A preacher friend of Huckabee’s convinced him that the girl’s murder had been an “accident” and that the convict had repented, come to Jesus and therefore should be freed.

Huckabee seems to have known very little about the horrifying case beyond what his preacher pal told him. He didn’t bother to seek the opinions of the prosecutor or the victim’s family, and he ignored the dissent of his own parole board. But after the governor announced that Green would be released, a furious public eventually forced him to reverse his decision. Still, he insisted on releasing a number of murderers and other violent criminals despite protests from prosecutors.

Aside from the manifest stupidity of releasing Green, Arkansas citizen groups and newspapers criticized the secrecy of Huckabee’s deliberations. He even refused to disclose his reasons for granting clemencies, supposedly because he didn’t want prisoners to figure out how to win his sympathy.

But as The Leader sardonically observed, “Huckabee may not have realized it, but every prisoner knew how to get on the governor’s good side. Call it Huckabee’s religion test. It’s a sure ticket to freedom: Tell him you’ve found religion.” Or get a friendly pastor to tell him.

Other prisoners likewise seemed to have a special claim on Huckabee’s attention, including those who labored as trusty servants at the governor’s mansion, relatives of Huckabee’s friends and employees and, in at least one case, a drunk driver who happened to be a wealthy real estate developer. (In 2003, he began serving a six-year sentence for repeated drunk driving offenses, but Huckabee let the man go after about six months. In 2006, he nearly killed a police officer in yet another drunk driving incident.)

Mercy is a wonderful quality, whether religious or secular. What seems far less wonderful is the dispensation of political favors disguised as religiosity—and that is exactly what the nation’s Founders meant to forbid.

Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer (www.observer.com).

[Glocksman]

Huckabee's a fucking nutjob, and correct gun rights positions notwithstanding, I'd rather see Hillary Clinton in office than him.
Frankly, he'd be Jimmy Carter without Carter's redeeming features.

[K. A. Pital]

So far I see several prominent Republican candidates are being dangerous nutjobs - Guiliani, Romney, Huckabee. Is there any Republican candidate who is
a) not a dangerous whacko
b) stands a good chance to become a 1st Presidential Candidate in their primaries?

I'm rather interested.

[Pablo Sanchez]

So far I see several prominent Republican candidates are being dangerous nutjobs - Guiliani, Romney, Huckabee. Is there any Republican candidate who is
a) not a dangerous whacko
b) stands a good chance to become a 1st Presidential Candidate in their primaries?

I'm rather interested.

I wouldn't call Romney a dangerous nutjob. He is the very definition of the empty-suit-and-false-smile American political operator, and in office would be completely a creature of his advisers and thus a probable repeat performance of the Bush administration. But he's about as slick and about as spineless as a slug, without enough definition to even be a wacko.

But yes, all of the GOP candidates who are polling good numbers are really amazingly bad candidates. Of the entire field, probably only Thompson and McCain would do a passably good job in the Oval Office (from the perspective of not really ruining America very much) but both of their campaigns have already foundered.

Glocksman--
Going by the performance of the Democrats in the senate, I've become very wary of a Hillary Clinton administration. She's in so deep with soft money and politics as usual that I'm almost entirely certain that she'll be unwilling to do the things that we seriously need done (national health care, infrastructure reform, tax reform to come up with the money we'll need for that stuff). Fortunately, the rest of the democratic field looks way better, so I'm not exactly starved for choice like the GOP.