Will the Canadians arrest G. W. Bush?

George W. is supposed to give a speech on St. Patrick's day (March 17) in Calgary, Alberta.

It appears that his dream of making "ridiculous" money out the former president lecture money trail is about to come true.

Or not.

There are certain lawyers and human rights folks in Canada working to persuade the Canadian government to bar him from entering the country, and if he should weasel his way in, have George arrested.

According to Ben Armbruster at Think Progress, "Vancouver Lawyer Gail Davidson said the government has an obligation under the law to ban Bush from entering Canada because of his role in supporting torture..."

It seems that Canada has a law restricting entry for those perps who have "committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, including torture." Davidson says, "The test isn't whether the person's been convicted but whether there's reasonable grounds to think that they have been involved."

Ooops. Seems that is the case with George W. He has, indeed, been "credibly accused" of being involved in torture.

Armbruster notes that last year, "Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, urged the U.S. to pursue Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on charges that they authorized torture and other harsh interrogation techniques. Indeed, Bush himself said last year that he was aware of his advisers' discussion on torture and recently admitted that he personally authorized waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammad."


It shall be interesting to see how this plays out. Davidson's law firm does not intend to back down or quit: "...we want him to go back to the States, or we want him arrested, said an organizer for Canadian activists.

Sounds good to me.


Read Armbruster's entire article here.

George W. Bush and Press Conferences

Media Matters reports on a Wall Street Journal editorial claiming (falsely) that "unlike President Obama, former President Bush never used a 'list of reporters preselected to ask questions' when deciding who would be called on at presidential press conferences."

Heh. Heh.

The numbnuts who wrote the editorial also made this hilariously ridiculous statement: "We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors."

Sheesh!


First of all, as Media Matters points out, "... Bush also used a list, as then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in a March 7, 2003, press briefing."

This is all so silly. The WSJ, typically more concerned with ideology than facts these days, failed in its elemental responsibility of checking their information. I've done the same thing, of course, but hell, I'm just a blogger, not the wusses at the WSJ!

Secondly, who gives a rat's ass? This piddly little editorial is simply an excuse to bitch at Obama, to try to show him in a bad light.

Thirdly, Bush didn't ever allow anyone to question him with a real question. In public appearances, every single person in his presence was prescreened to make sure they were Republicans, and secondly, would not ask him a difficult question, like "Where is Iraq?"


Bush's press conferences were few, thankfully, for they were an exercise in futility and boredom! On those few occasions when someone did actually ask him a question that required a minimal amount of brain power to answer, the results became fodder for our late-night comics.

Finally, why would anyone read the Wall Street Journal anymore? It's merely FAUX News in print!

Read the Media Matters entire article here.

Bush trims health care for poor

This from Chris in Paris at Americablog.


This is why we sent the bastards packing. They really are disgusting and selfish people in the Republican party.


In the first of an expected avalanche of post-election regulations, the Bush administration on Friday narrowed the scope of services that can be provided to poor people under Medicaid's outpatient hospital benefit.

Public hospitals and state officials immediately protested the action, saying it would reduce Medicaid payments to many hospitals at a time of growing need.

The new rule conflicts with efforts by Congressional leaders and governors to increase federal aid to the states for Medicaid as part of a new economic action plan.

President-elect Barack Obama has endorsed those efforts. At a news conference on Friday, he said that legislation to stimulate the economy should include "assistance to state and local governments" so they would not have to lay off workers or increase taxes.

+ + + +

And isn't it interesting that the Republican party and President Bush invariably attempt to trim the budget on the backs of the poor?

Maybe we could humbly ask those bankers who are now wallowing in bailout cash, and who are using that money to pay themselves big bonuses and take half-million dollar retreats, if they could give some of it back so we could broaden the scope of services that can be provided to poor people under Medicaid's outpatient hospital benefit.

The "disgraceful" treatment of G. W. Bush

The Wall Street Journal. Jeffrey Scott Shapiro. "The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace."


Mr. Shapiro, erstwhile defender of George W. Bush, writes that a whole bunch of folks in San Francisco petitioned to have a sewage plant named after George W. Bush. (Sounds good to me, but why give a sewage plant a bad name?)

Shapiro, though, is upset. This, he says, "is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president."

He says Bush's approval ratings are hovering just above basement level. And that "is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans."

It's all so sad. Poor Mr. Bush. His "bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties."

All right, stop laughing! Shapiro isn't done!

"It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything." Yup!

Shapiro, living in an alternative reality, whines on:

"The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

"Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House."

That must be why the entire world is dancing for joy over Obama's election and Bush's anticipated departure?


Do you suppose Mr. Shapiro made it through the 8th grade?

It's not just that what he says is insanely misguided, but that the opposite of what he says is true. The problem is not that Americans have treated Bush "disgracefully," but that Bush has treated this nation and its people disgracefully; it's that Mr. Bush has damn near destroyed the land of the free and the home of the brave.


To put it in the words of Joseph L. Galloway at McClatchy:

"They've [the Bush administration] squandered lives, fortunes and our sacred honor."

To be specific:

The Republican Party, under the leadership of President Bush, has "wrought - an economic meltdown, two endless wars, class warfare that's enriched the very rich and beggared everyone else and a treasury bulging with IOU's..."

Bush and his Party have, says Galloway, "...done everything they could to destroy the government and the Constitution that our forefathers so carefully constructed to check and balance any self-anointed monarch's ability to do evil or accumulate dangerous and excessive power. ...

"...our right to privacy has been whittled away, legally and illegally. Big Brother has been listening, but only for our own good. ...

"With the arrogance common to those who are ignorant of both history and the world, these people threw away our standing in that world, declaring that everyone must either be with us or against us. ...

"They demanded unfettered capitalism, and in the hands of the Wall Street robber barons that was turned into pure evil, pure greed and pure folly. Now millions of Americans are losing their homes in the mortgage meltdown, and millions more have seen their life savings, their 401ks and IRAs, their hopes of a comfortable retirement, blow away like so many leaves on a cruel Texas norther.

"They played on our fears like a mighty Wurlitzer Organ, frightening us with lies into an unnecessary war in Iraq. ...

"They frightened us so badly that we voluntarily surrendered the precious rights that a million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen and others bought for us with their lives during two centuries of freedom and democracy.

"They used fear to violate international law, to torture and imprison thousands of suspected enemies without charges or trials. They used fear and invoked national security to suspend the right of habeas corpus, the foundation of our freedoms."


Galloway is absolutely right, but he didn't even touch on one of the most detrimental policies of the Bush administration -- the denial of global warming and the refusal to engage in any action which might deal effectively with what is rapidly becoming the major threat to the world's survival!

He didn't mention the failure of Bush and company to address the growing poverty in this, the richest nation on earth, or the unwillingness to provide health care to people who cannot afford it, or the shameless absorption of fundamentalist Christianity political goals into the policies of the Bush administration, thus disallowing stem cell research, and condom-distribution in AIDS-stricken Africa. This merging of church and state has also led to the infiltration of our military by christianist rightists, to a insane and belligerent stance toward Iran predicated on end-times theology, to a refusal to protect women's right to choose, to an assault on the rights of gays and lesbians.


As the Bush/Cheney administration winds down, the culprits face the nation with innocent blood dripping from their hands, and the entire world reels in pain, shocked by these madmen who have ruled the United States for nigh onto eight years. At this very moment, American soldiers are dying in far-off lands for no reason whatsoever, and innocent men, women and children lay eviscerated next to them, and the cries of the suffering rise to deities who have either turned away or are not there.


So, Mr. Shapiro, don't tell us that we have treated this president "disgracefully." Everything he has touched has turned toxic and, except for his wealthy cronies, the world has suffered in ungodly agony.

He and his friends are criminals, Mr. Shapiro! It is possible that they will eventually stand before the bar of justice and answer for their crimes.

You see, the word, "disgraceful," is an adjective describing President Bush.