The start of a war crimes trial?

This is perhaps the first step in the worldwide prosecution of George W. Bush.

Bush's GITMO did not keep us safe

Here is proof that Bush's GITMO did not keep us safe:

One of the captured terrorists that Bush's administration let go free is now leading the war against us in Afghanistan.  Good job George.  Maybe if we'd have let these guys work through the justice system, he'd be in Supermax now, not in an opium field.

Obama overturns Bush stem cell policy

President Obama will be ending the Bush administrations policy that banned the use of federal funds to conduct research on embryonic stem cells.  He left some additional details to Congress, on whether to fund research on testing human embryos. 

Finally, science is back. 

The Coverup Exposed

Bush's CIA has now admitted to destroying almost 100 interrogation (i.e. torture) tapes.  

Bush tries to ban Roquefort

One of George W. Bush's final orders included slapping a 300% tax on Roquefort cheese.  This is a very good cheese that I sometimes enjoy and I think this tariff needs to be rescinded.  It is a blue cheese made from unpasteurized sheep's milk and a special type of mold.

For some reason, a lot of ignorant Americans (like Mr. Bush) do not like France.  I don't understand why, because I have visited the country many times and found the people to be extremely pleasant.  With Mr. Bush, it is most likely that he is angry because the French were right about not going into Iraq.  So he decides to make it harder to buy one of the products that they happen to sell.  

Now, the United States does claim that the reason they are putting this tax on the cheese is because the EU will not accept our hormone laden beef.  However, I myself try to not consume beef from cows injected with hormones so I can't blame them for it.  They are not rejecting all American products, just the ones that happen to be of questionable quality.  It would be like us banning lead toys from China, and the Chinese getting upset.

Reflecting on Bush

George W Bush's biggest failure as a President was in allowing the outrage over 9/11 to shape his policies over the subsequent years of his presidency.  His obsession with the "war" on terror prevented him from fully engaging with domestic policies.  Other than No Child Left Behind, I cannot name a single, major domestic policy initiative of his.  

9/11 was a horrible even, and none say otherwise.  But the reaction to it, especially from the Executive Branch, was completely unbalanced.  Going to Afghanistan was a good thing, as that is where the attacks had been planned, and that is where the attackers had refuge.  

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.  Yet the country, once a close ally, was turned upside down over the false information (lie?) that weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) were hiding in the desert sands.  They weren't.  Bush should have listened to the UN weapon inspectors from the beginning.  Sure, Saddam Hussein laughed at Bush and our country, but he was never a serious threat.  At least we knew who he was; unlike the faceless enemies that replaced him.  His threat to the US was akin to someone throwing an egg at your house.  And instead of yelling at them, or calling the police (the UN), you went outside with a shotgun and unloaded.  That's what the Iraq war is.

I had nothing to do with 9/11.  Yet I have to show ID and take off my shoes to get on and airplane, and so do many others who are either patriotic Americans or harmless visitors to this country.

The Department of Homeland Security was created, a bureaucracy to manage bureaucracies.  It introduced the color coded terror threat, which has not changed in quite some time.  So is the DHS even effective?  

Back to Bush.   He definitely got more than he signed up for.  And the team he had in place at the beginning only took him further down the road of paranoia.  

Thankfully our next president is much more of a cool customer who will think before pushing that big red button. 

Prosecute Bush Administration?

The Congress is considering prosecuting some of the Bush administration officials.  This needs to be done; all the way to the top.

Through warrantless wiretaps, torture, and many other unknown actions, the administration has broken the law at home and abroad.  To use the term War Crimes, is not an overstatement.  These types of prosecutions are never convenient or easy, but we need to look back at our record of potential atrocities over the last 8 years and vow to show that no one is above the law.

A summary of the Bush years

Healthcare workers should not have the right to say no

I'm in full agreement with Ronald Bailey on this issue.

One of Bush's last acts in office is to allow healthcare workers to refuse treatment that they morally object to without losing their jobs. So a Catholic pharmacist could refuse to dispense birth control, or Plan B. This would also allow a nurse at a doctor's office to refuse to help with an abortion.

While at first this issue would appear to be helping individual freedom, it does not. A private employer should have the right to demand that employees perform certain tasks, since those employees can quit at any time. Don't want to dispense Plan B? Then don't become a pharmacist.

Thankfully, soon-to-be President Obama is in agreement with Ronald, me, and the ACLU and will strike this down fairly quickly.

Just another example of the Bush administration mixing church and state.

Holder Rejects Torture

Eric Holder, Barack Obama's pick for attorney general, today rejected waterboarding as torture saying that none are above the law.

This is already quite a positive change in direction from the Bush years, which will likely go down as the dark moment in American history.

Hurricane Gustav could spoil the GOP's parade

Hurricane gustav could potentially hit New Orleans on Monday, the same day that Bush speaks to the GOP convention.  I hope that it doesn't hit that town (I'm going there in January), but if it does, that would truly derail the republicans convention, especially if the levees break again.  And all under the watch of Piyush "Bobby" Jindal.  

Quote of the night

"John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush more than 90% of the time...that's not a maverick, that's a sidekick. "

--Bob Casey

Pat Buchanan: McCain's advisor a traitor

John McCain has lost Pat Buchanan as a supporter.  Not sure he was ever onboard, but this just shows that McCain is much closer to the Bush-style of republican politics than the Ron Paul side.

Cheney, Bush, and his sequel to appear at convention

Like three peas in a pod, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Dick Cheney will all be at the GOP convention.  Bush and Cheney will give speeches to acknowledge how McCain will continue their legacies over the next 4 years.  

What we can learn from India

The world's biggest democracy is corrupt, there's no doubt about it, but the description of their problems is shockingly similar to our own situation:

"India's public campaign-finance laws are not enforced, and candidates are regularly backed by donors and corporations that expect favors in return."

Our public campaign finance laws are not enforced either.  Case in point: McCain violated his own campaign finance laws.

Our any of our politicians backed by large donors?  Who do you think helped elect George W. Bush?  

McCain: Worse than Bush?

Hopefully we will never know the answer to the title of this post, but in order to inform the undecided, we need to visit this issue.  Would a McCain presidency be worse than Bush?  

When George W. Bush was first elected president in 2000, we were at the peak of the internet boom.  The business cycles has since been on a downward spin, most likely because we have not had a positive technological shock since the dot.com boom of the late 90's.  Whether we will have another such shock in the next 8 years is anyone's guess, but it is likely as these cycles run over 15-20 years.  

No matter if Bush or Gore was elected president, we would likely have faced a minor recession sometime over the past 8 years.  What would not have been predicted, however, is the massive cost of the Iraq War, which has been a major factor in the spike in oil prices, the fall of the dollar, and the loss of our rights to privacy, jury, and other freedoms.  

How would John McCain or Barack Obama confront such issues?

When it comes to the Iraq War, currently McCain is more gung-ho about it than even George Bush.  While the White House has recently flirted with the idea of setting a vague timetable for withdrawal, McCain remains steadfast that we should maintain permanent bases in Iraq, against the wishes of the Iraqis and more than 50% of Americans.  McCain's wishes would likely lead to at least a $1,000,000,000 level of spending over his presidency, from this issue alone.  

When it comes to oil prices, McCain favors "offshore drilling" and not much else.  Offshore drilling was already allowed, oil companies did not choose to partake in it.  All Bush just did was open up some more areas.  That point is moot, since we do not have enough refineries to keep up with this, so even if we did strike oil (this would take 5-10 years), we would have to have it made into gasoline by another country and then re-import it.  Even conservative oil-man T Boone Pickens does not see oil as the future.  Instead, he proposes we use a combination of wind power and natural gas.  I also think that geothermal power, nuclear power, and solar power have to be added to the first two to be our new backbone of electricity, which could power a new generation of vehicles.  McCain talks about alternative energies, but seems to be continuing Bush's legacy of paying lip service to alternatives while just drilling for more oil to further fuck up our planet.

McCain worse than Bush?  Maybe, but hopefully we will never know the answer.

Iraq wants us out

The prime minister of Iraq has officially asked for a US timetable for withdrawal of our troops, and specifically said that they do not want another Korea, in which we would build bases and remain there forever.  

Bush will likely ignore the request, meaning that we will be seen as occupying the country in which a new government that we helped secure power now wants us out.  This situation will only embolden radical elements and increase the likelihood of attacks on both the US and its allies.  

John McCain is also going to look a lot more like Bush, and a lot more likely to end up on the losing end of a landslide come the election.

One thing worth pointing out is that this issue could be McCain's first big flip-flop.  In 2004, he said that if an elected Iraqi government wanted us out, we could not stay.  Today he says that the president is just "being a politician" and that while they will look out for their interests "we will look out for ours."  

The Real War on Terror

According to Bush, McCain, and their ilk, things are going great in Iraq.  Troop deaths are down (but not completely absent) and the "surge" worked.  I hear they will be building a Disneyland in Fallujah next year.  

All those extra troops didn't come out of nowhere, they came out of the land that harbored Osama while he planned his attacks on us: Afghanistan.  And how are we doing there?

We just had the deadliest month ever in that country for US troops and reports are that the Taliban is planning a comeback.  

Bush Ignores Own Scientists' Email

George W. Bush is not a man of science.  Now, the New York Times is reporting that the White House refuses to open an email sent to them by the EPA because it contains a document that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant.  The EPA was ordered by the Supreme Court to conduct an analysis on the issue.

Just like Saddam's non-existent WMD's when Bush and his cronies are faced with something that they disagree with, they ignore it, at everyone's expense.  

As I've mentioned previously, even John McCain, the man who cannot even find porn on the internet, recognizes that greenhouse gases are a problem.  Why does Bush continue down this path?  

Habeas Corpus Remains

Today in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court rule that the "enemy combatants" in Guantanemo deserve to be tried in a real court, not a kangaroo court in Cuba.  

Habeas Corpus is an ancient doctrine that basically says a person must be brought to a real court, presented with real charges, and a decision must be made as to whether the person should remain in custody.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the write of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War to hold Confederates in the Union without bringing them to trial.

It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.  If these are truly bad people we have in Guantanemo (and I'm not convinced that all of them are bad, since many of them were given to us by other dictators they pissed off), then there should be no issues with bringing them to trial.  A country should not be afraid to take people to a real courtroom, not a military tribunal, if it really believes that the said persons committed crimes.  

This ruling is an important victory for Liberty, since the government was on a slippery slope of being able to detain anyone, including American citizens, and keeping them locked up forever without a trial.

I have long been against holding these people without a trial.  If it is proven that they killed Americans, we should execute them.  But every person deserves the right to a fair trial, and this is what we were denying.

Sorry Bush, sorry McBush, oops I mean McCain.  You aren't above the law anymore.