The Deets

Look no further than Bush’s 2003 state of the union address where he claimed he proposed:

President Bush
announced a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative to reverse America’s
growing dependence on foreign oil by developing the technology for
commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells to power cars, trucks,
homes and businesses with no pollution or greenhouse gases. The
hydrogen fuel initiative will include $720 million in new funding over
the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure to
produce, store, and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles
and electricity generation. Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative
Automotive Research) initiative, President Bush is proposing a total of
$1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel
cells, hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies.

We haven’t heard much about that over the past three years. But more money than that is unaccounted for in the Iraq debacle.

Bush to Promote Fuel-Saving Technologies

Trying to calm anxieties about soaring energy costs, President Bush is using his State of the Union address this week to focus on a package of energy of proposals aimed at bringing fuel-saving technologies out of the lab and into use.

Will we hear about Bush’s “coalition of the homophobic” during his state of the union address? Shameful.

‘Bigotry Conquers All,’ Gay Rights Groups Say of U.S. Vote at UN - Yahoo! News

”It is astonishing that the Bush administration would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran, and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic,’‘ Long said.

Rights advocates said the Bush administration’s international posture matched its increasingly strident and discriminatory bent at home. Religiously and socially extremist elements of the U.S. population and among Bush’s supporters–to whom many pundits attributed the president’s 2004 re-election– have been increasingly loud and militant over the past year, according to human rights activists.

I don’t believe Bush really hates gay people enough to want to ban same-sex marriage. But he does hate them enough to use gay bashing as a campaign issue. It did a great job diverting debate away from Bush’s failure to capture Osama bin Laden, the wasteful war in Iraq, and his failed energy policies.

A Look at Bush Promises Past

-2004: Bush called on Congress to extend the Patriot Act, set to expire in 2005. With the budget deficit mushrooming, the president proposed few new domestic initiatives. He backed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.

The gay-marriage proposal flared briefly as a campaign issue, then receded. The Patriot Act was not extended.

Perhaps it’s because I’m reading it rather than hearing Ms. Coulter deliver this jab at Justice Stevens that I don’t understand it?

“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme
brulee,” Coulter said. “That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”

How is that a joke? What’s funny about it?

I’m not trying to be a spoil sport. I just don’t get it. Anyone care to explain the humor in Coulter’s statment?

The guys at Powerline Blog don’t seem to realize how idiotic they look when they attempt to dismiss the influence of the Daily Kos blog:

Moving beyond bluster into question-begging, Kos added, “There’s
nothing ‘extreme left’ with demanding Democrats act like Democrats.”
But Democrats have never acted like Kos and his Kiddie Korps.

Only two posts and six hours after patting themselves on the back about reaching 50 million page views. A quick look at the blog traffic rankings on Truthlaidbear.com shows how insignificant Powerline is compared to Kos. Technorati’s top blog rankings also show the extraordinary difference in the influence of Powerline vs. Kos.

Wow. The bumper stickers aren’t even stickers. They’re magnets. Now that’s sacrifice. Sen. Santorum, are we really sacrificing when we’re borrowing to pay for a war? Or, are the unborn - who will one day have to pay for this mess - the people who are really sacrificing for this unjust war. You care about the unborn, right?

City Pages - The Blotter - 1/27: Morning Communique

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

“And yet we have brave men and women who are willing to step forward because they know what’s at stake. They’re willing to sacrifice their lives for this great country. What I’m asking all of you tonight is not to put on a uniform. Put on a bumper sticker. Is it that much to ask? Is it that much to ask to step up and serve your country?”

– Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), calling Americans to serve

It really is amazing how brazen Justice Scalia was taking a junket like this in conflict with the swearing-in ceremony of someone he’s going to be working with for the rest of his life. It makes me wonder how he makes decisions. Does he work for the United States as a supreme court justice, or is his first responsibility to the Federalist Society, who pay for his drinks and lodging at the Ritz-Carlton?

ABC News: EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Ethics Problem?

At the historic swearing-in of John Roberts as the 17th chief justice of the United States last September, every member of the Supreme Court, except Antonin Scalia, was in attendance. ABC News has learned that Scalia instead was on the tennis court at one of the country’s top resorts, the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bachelor Gulch, Colo., during a trip to a legal seminar sponsored by the Federalist Society.

The problems with Medicare Part D are no laughing matter. The lives of America’s most vulnerable citizens are at risk. Incompetence is a perfect description of the failed implementation an follow-through on Bush’s own initiatives, including Medicare reform, the Iraq war, bringing Bin Laden to justice, and responding to Katrina:

Bush the Incompetent

It’s the president’s prescription drug plan (Medicare Part D), though, that is his most mind-boggling failure. As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn’t had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. Pharmacists are not resisting the program; seniors are not planting car bombs to impede it (not yet, anyway). But in what must be an unforeseen development, people are trying to get their medications covered under the program. Apparently, this is a contingency for which the administration was not prepared, as it has been singularly unable to get its own program up and running.

SANY0069
Originally uploaded by ceonyc.