After spending the week meeting with world leaders at the G8 discussing and struggling to try to negotiate solutions to world problems like global warming, President Bush exited his last G8 summit Thursday by saying "goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
According to various reports, Bush, standing amongst other country's leaders, then punched the air and smiled.
The London Telegraph reports that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy "looked on in shock" after watching Bush.
The G8 spent much of its time this week dealing with global warming, agreeing Tuesday to cut global emissions in half by 2050.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) will take 10 of his Republican colleagues up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska next week to highlight their call for more domestic oil drilling and other U.S.-based energy sources.
President Bush urged Congress Wednesday to lift the offshore drilling ban and allow oil companies to explore for additional oil reserves along the nation's coastline
Bush said Congress has "no excuse" keep the ban and blamed Democrats for rising gas prices.
"I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past," Bush said. "Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions."
"Despite what President Bush, John McCain and their friends in the oil industry claim, we cannot drill our way out of this problem," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) responded.
"The math is simple: America has just three percent of the world
Congressmen whose districts border the Mississippi River are bracing for floods as tides that have ravaged Iowa and Minnesota in the past week start to head south.
Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) met with volunteers today in his western Illinois district, holding a press conference with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and local officials to address the threat.
Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.), whose district borders Hare's across the river, is preparing a front-page section of his website to give constituents up-to-date information on the flooding, an idea his office got from Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa), according to Hulshof Legislative Director Aaron Smith.
Hulshof, who maintains a farm eight miles from the river, has a staffer in contact with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Association, Smith said.
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Chuck Norris got a taste for politics on former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's (R) campaign, and he liked it.
Norris is now working for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's (R-Ga.) group "American Solutions for Winning the Future."
In a web ad cut for group, Norris complains about the cost of filling his truck with gas and directs viewers to sign a petition being circulated by American Solutions urging Congress to "act immediately to lower gasoline prices...by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves."
Standing at the gas pump, Norris says, "I'd like to roundhouse kick this pump all the way into the next county."
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) tried to call attention last week to global warming reports he found ridiculous by using flatulence jokes, an approach he had tried last year. Now he finds himself again the target of Democratic attacks.
Rohrabacher voiced skepticism in a House floor speech Thursday over the idea that global warming results primarily from man-made factors. Rohrabacher, in dismissing a report blaming cattle flatulence for climate change, noted there wasn't much global warming when buffalo herds dominated the Great Plains centuries ago.
"One can only assume that the anti-meat, man-made global warming crowd must believe that buffalo farts have some social redeeming value that
Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) gets all wonky about the possibilities of the Internet in a YouTube video filmed at the World Economic Forum.
Baird, asked after attending a discussion on different visions of the global economy, environment and technology in 2025, said that the Internet has the potential to lead people in opposite directions.
"On the one hand, one can immerse themselves in narrow-mindedness, paranoia, and divisiveness, that is happening politically," he said. "On the other hand, it allows you to communicate with people in new ways. If we used the hyperlinked world to open our minds, to communicate messages of tolerance and improve our understanding, it might help us get to the multipolar world."
Baird, speaking at the forum in Sharm El-Shaikh, Egypt, goes on to talk about the need to do more about the environment and recognize the need to protect natural resources.
Watch Baird below, and read more about the "hyperlinked," "sustainable" and "multipolar" worlds Baird talks about here. (The positive visions of the world, put forth by forum organizers, have garnered some skepticism from McClatchy reporter Hannah Allam.)
The farm bill passed the House Wednesday by a vote of 318-106, more than enough to override a Presidential veto if the Bush Administration follows through on its threats.
Many House Republicans broke ranks with both Bush and John McCain to vote in favor of the farm bill, The Hill's Ian Swanson reports.
A few lawmakers have shared their reactions to the farm bill's passage on The Hill's Congress Blog.
The Senate has passed a two-week farm bill extension. The House has begun debate on the extension lasting until May 16.
The farm bill has been repeatedly extended since debate began on the bill last year. Reports indicate some House and Senate members are looking to cut subsidies granted to more wealthy farmers.
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