Keep the war criminal out

Apparently war criminal Bush can not be indicted in Canada because he is still in office. Canada does, however, have an immigration law banning war criminals or suspected war criminals from entering the country.

November 26, 2004 A Memo to Canada's Ministry of Immigration Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada By MICHAEL MANDEL and GAIL DAVIDSON The Honourable Judy Sgro, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Ottawa Canada K1A 1L1 Tel: 1 613 954 1064 Fax: 1 613 957 2688 Minister@cic.gc.ca sgro.j@parl.gc.ca Dear Minister Sgro, Re: President George W. Bush proposed November 30th 2004 visit to Canada. We wrote to Prime Minister Martin on November 19 2004 protesting the invitation of President Bush to Canada on the grounds of the President's flagrant commission of the most serious crimes against international law. Our letter is enclosed. As that letter indicates, many of the crimes of which President Bush stands accused are crimes under Canadian law, specifically under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. We are writing to you now to remind you that these crimes render President Bush inadmissible to Canada under our immigration laws. Because responsibility for the operation and enforcement of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act lies with you and your Ministry, we are calling on you to advise the Prime Minister of this fact and to insist that he rescind this invitation out of respect for our laws. As you know, section 35 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, 2001 2001 provides as follows: 35. (1) A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on grounds of violating human or international rights for (a) committing an act outside Canada that constitutes an offence referred to in sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act; Paragraph 2 of section 35 allows for exceptions to be made for other classes of inadmissible foreign nationals 'who satisf[y] the Minister that their presence in Canada would not be detrimental to the national interest.' However, these exceptions specifically do not apply to those who have committed acts constituting offences referred to in sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Section 6 of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act incorporates by reference all international crimes against humanity and war crimes, and, explicitly, all crimes enumerated in Articles 7 and 8(2) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Section 7 of the Act places special responsibility on 'military commanders' and other 'superiors' for crimes committed by their subordinates that they knew of, or were criminally negligent in failing to know of, and with respect to which they did not take necessary and reasonable steps to prevent. Section 33 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act specifically provides that 'facts that constitute inadmissibility under sections 34 to 37 include facts arising from omissions and, unless otherwise provided, include facts for which there are reasonable grounds to believe that they have occurred, are occurring or may occur.' The evidence of President Bush's past and ongoing criminality is overwhelming. A recent editorial in the Washington Post commented on some of the now well known facts regarding the chain of memoranda from the President and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, now Attorney General, that led to the use of torture by the US Armed Forces. These memoranda clearly establish the President's culpability for the torture used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. We also refer you to the many careful reports prepared by respected human rights organizations, journalists and scholars and also to recent decisions by US Courts, some of which are referenced in our letter to the Prime Minister and others we have listed below. These clearly provide far more than 'reasonable grounds to believe' in President Bush's legal and moral responsibility for the gravest crimes under numerous provisions of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. [read more]

Thanksgiving poem

On my way to Thanksgiving dinner yesterday I heard a poem on the radio. It was "As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse" read by the poet Billy Collins.

As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse

I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table
to represent the sun.
Then down at the other end
a blue and white marble
becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.

I get a glass from a cabinet,
open a bottle of wine,
then I sit in a ladder-back chair,
a benevolent god presiding
over a miniature creation myth,

and I begin to sing
a homemade canticle of thanks
for this perfect little arrangement,
for not making the earth too hot or cold
not making it spin too fast or slow

so that the grove of orange trees
and the owl become possible,
not to mention the rolling wave,
the play of clouds, geese in flight,
and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.

Then I fill my glass again
and give thanks for the trout,
the oak, and the yellow feather,

singing the room full of shadows,
as sun and earth and moon
circle one another in their impeccable orbits
and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.


by Billy Collins from Nine Horses © Random House

Buy Nothing Day

Don't forget about Buy Nothing Day on Friday here in the US and on Saturday in the UK.

You can even take part in a Whirl Mart. Also see Consumer Monster. Or see 101 THINGS TO DO ON BUY NOTHING DAY. And of course Buy Nothing Christmas (see article).

Deer 5, Hunters 192,934

Hunter kills five, injures three after tree stand dispute

By JOSHUA FREED
Associated Press Writer
BIRCHWOOD, Wis. - A deer hunter shot and killed five people and injured three others in northwestern Wisconsin over a dispute about a tree stand during the hunt's opening weekend, authorities said.

The 36-year-old alleged gunman, who lives in the Minneapolis area, was arrested at about 5:15 p.m. Sunday at the Rusk and Sawyer County line, Sawyer County sheriff's officials said.

Jake Hodgkinson, a deputy at the county jail, identified the suspect as Chai Vang but would give no additional details.

Two hunters were returning to their rural cabin on private land in Sawyer County when they saw the suspect in one of their tree stands before noon Sunday, County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle said. A confrontation and shooting followed.
[more]

U2 Rocked SNL

Tonight's Saturday Night Live viewers were treated to a third song by U2. After the last commercial break host Luke Wilson and Bono were sitting on the edge of the stage with the cast behind them when Bono got up and went over to the music stage and U2 performed "I Will Follow". It looked like the live audience was even treated to one more song after that. I've wanted to go see SNL in person for years but I never did. This would have been a good one to see live.

I remember buying my first U2 recording in 1983. I saw them live in 1992. I actually heard them live all summer when I was working at Hersheypark and they were practicing for their outdoor ZOO TV tour. I still love U2. I'm not like a crazy fan or anything but I enjoy seeing them perform.

Anyhow, this was a welcome change from the Ashlee Simpson lip-sync fiasco.

****update****

Here is a link to the video of the "I Will Follow" performance at the end of the show.

Why we love Molly Ivins

Read this by Molly Ivins:

A long four years
November 17, 2004

AUSTIN, Texas -- My, my, gonna be a long four years. House Republicans have rewritten the ethics rules so Tom DeLay won't have to resign if indicted after all. Let's hear it for moral values. DeLay is one of the leading forces in making "Republican ethics" into an oxymoron.

The rule was passed in 1993, when Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was being investigated for ethics violations. And who helped lead the floor fight to force him to resign his powerful position? Why, Tom DeLay, of course. (Actually, it's sort of a funny story. The D's already had a caucus rule that you had to resign from any leadership position if indicted. The R's changed their rules to match the D's, except they deliberately did not make their rule retroactive, so the highly indicted Rep. Joseph McDade, senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, could, unlike Rostenkowski, retain his seat.)

DeLay has already been admonished by the House ethics committee three times on separate violations of ethics rules. Please note, that is the Republican-dominated ethics committee. The hilarious rationale offered by the R's for the new rule to exempt DeLay is that no one can accuse them of taking the moral low road here because, "That line of reasoning accepts that exercise of the prosecutor in Texas is legitimate."
[read more]

Bless our Wal-Mart Nation

PBS showed Hedrick Smith's "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" on Frontline last night. The whole Wal-Mart thing is eerily similar to the Bush Administration's America. Wal-Mart convinces its low wage employees and its shoppers that Wal-Mart is good for them. Meanwhile, they are responsible for shutting down American manufacturers. Responsible for sending American jobs to China.

So Americans lose their jobs, communities lose their factories and their tax base, and Wal-Mart makes gobs of money for a very few people. And dumb Americans continue shop there.

The "far left" (me) responds

This is from a certain Bush-mo-tized blogger:

Where is the outcry from the far left? Where are the feminists? Where are the bloggers who were obsessed with what happened at Abu Ghraib? Why are they silent when civilian contractors are burned and hung from brides, when civilians are kidnapped and have their heads sawed off, when mass graves containing men, women, children and babies are discovered, when innocent school children, parents and teachers are tortured, raped and murdered in Beslan, Russia? Far left liberals would rather bitch and cry about the humiliation of men in panties or the justified killing of insurgents (terrorists!) who fire upon our troops and would kill us if given the chance.

This is my response:

1. Civilian contractors (mercenaries!) should not be in Iraq.


2. The US military should not be in Iraq. Therefore every US and British military death, every civilian death (Iraqi and otherwise), and the destruction of Iraq could have been avoided.


3. The humiliation and torture of prisoners of war is a war crime perpetrated in the name of the people of the United States.


4. It is illegal under the Geneva Convention to kill a wounded person. Period.


5. While the Beslan school massacre was horrible and disturbing, it was not done in my name.

This is what 'liberation' looks like

"I am pleased to have been part of a team that launched the global war against terror, liberated the Afghan and Iraqi people" -- Colin Powell (from his resignation letter)

Join The Revolution

The Revolution Starts Now I was walkin' down the street In the town where I was born I was movin' to a beat That I'd never felt before So I opened up my eyes And I took a look around I saw it written 'cross the sky The revolution starts now Yeah, the revolution starts now The revolution starts now When you rise above your fear And tear the walls around you down The revolution starts here Where you work and where you play Where you lay your money down What you do and what you say The revolution starts now Yeah the revolution starts now Yeah the revolution starts now In your own backyard In your own hometown So what you doin' standin' around? Just follow your heart The revolution starts now Last night I had a dream That the world had turned around And all our hopes had come to be And the people gathered 'round They all brought what they could bring And nobody went without And I learned a song to sing The revolution starts now by

Who are we

I saw this posted by someone who is proud to be a "Red State" voter:

We are the red states. We listen to talk shows and Fox News. We tear up when we hear the National Anthem. We drive SUVS and fly business class. We go through drive-thrus, have mortgages, and shop at Wal-Mart. We attend BBQs, football games, fire hall meetings, and places of faith. We believe life is precious and marriage is sacred. We believe there are some things worth dying for. We have the utmost respect for those who lay their life on the line defending our freedom and protecting our streets. We believe religion is not a philosophy but a way of life. We raise our children as best we can. We'll help anyone who really needs it, and not blame others for our own bad choices. We read our Holy Books. We pray because we know wisdom comes from God, not man. We go about our lives quietly as we care for our families. We might not have time to demonstrate, but we make time to vote. We expect the values we teach our children to be respected in our schools. We expect people to say what they mean and mean what they say. We expect to work hard and earn the just rewards of that labor. We expect to be able to watch a football game with our kids and not have to worry about the content of the half-time show. We expect terrorists and those who harm the innocent to be punished. We are farms, ranches, small businesses, and town squares. We are BBQs, baseball games, fishing holes, and civic clubs. We are little league games, piano recitals, Bible Studies, and car pools. We are grandfathers in Iwo Jima, fathers in Vietnam, and sons and daughters in Iraq. We are fly-over country. We are the red states.

I came up with my own list. I do not intend to speak for everyone in blue states, nor do I intend to speak for everyone who voted against Bush.

We are informed and educated about the rest of the world. We listen to Democracy Now! and the BBC. We write for and read our local newspapers. We know that talk radio listeners think they are more informed but are really less informed. We take public transportation and drive hybrids. We walk our children to school or to the bus stop. We shop at co-ops and corner stores and local merchants, while they brag about shopping at Wal-Mart despite the cost to their community and our society. We volunteer at food banks and thrift stores. We use our libraries and public schools. We believe in education and rehabilitation. We know that they believe in incarceration and execution. We believe that children should be allowed to pray in school--silently by themselves, not led by teachers. We know that in 2004 there have been 58 executions in the US, 57 of them in Red States. We know that since 1977 there have been 937 state executions, 889 of them in Red States. We know the top ten states in inmate incarceration rates are all red. While Red State voters talk about values, we act upon our values. We know they allow their neighbors to live in poverty, yet claim to be Christian and "moral". We read; and not only "holy books". We have passports and we have been to "Old Europe". We know that practicing religion is a right and a choice. We don't believe in writing our religious beliefs into law. We know that forcing our "values" on others is wrong. We know that the rights of the minority must be protected from the tyranny of the majority. We manned the Underground Railroad. We immigrated from Asia and Europe to build railroads and work in coal mines. We fought for workers' rights and against child labor. We refused to name names. We walked with Martin Luther King, Jr. We were the Stonewall Girls. We protested American agression in Vietnam and Cambodia. We were killed for exercising our First Amendment rights. We died for what we believed in. We are anti-globalists and eco-feminists. We are librarians and professors. We are business owners and artists. We are waitresses and teachers' aides. We are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. We are black and white, yellow and brown. We are Christian and Buddhist, Jew and Atheist. We are thinkers and laborers. We are Americans and citizens of the world.

And we are a lot more than that, but it's a start. Please feel free to add to the list in the comments. (And you red staters do not have to to add that we are godless commies, or that we are terrorist-loving tree huggers, or baby killers. We already know that you believe that.)

More from Ashcroft

He won't go away. So I guess that judges who disagree with Bush are terrorists too.

Ashcroft condemns judges who question Bush

By CURT ANDERSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- Federal judges are jeopardizing national security by issuing rulings contradictory to President Bush's decisions on America's obligations under international treaties and agreements, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday.

In his first remarks since his resignation was announced Tuesday, Ashcroft forcefully denounced what he called "a profoundly disturbing trend" among some judges to interfere in the president's constitutional authority to make decisions during war.

"The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at risk the very security of our nation in a time of war," Ashcroft said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers group.
[more]

Ashcroft / Jesus in 2008

I know, I really have too much time on my hands.

But what else can I do.

Specter must go

...according to the Evangelical Christians.

Last week Pennsylvania's senior Senator Arlen Specter who is in line to head the Senate Judiciary Committee warned Bush about appointing people who are pro-life to fill judicial vacancies. Well, ever since, the extreme christian right has been on a crusade to stop Specter.

From NPR's All Things Considered:

"We would like to see him gone. We don't believe that Arlen Specter represents what the president stands for, we don't believe that Arlen Specter represents what the Senate leadership stands for, particularly on the abortion issue. Arlen Specter is a man who's time has gone, and he ought to go too." -- Tom Minnery, Vice President of Public Policy for Focus on the Family

So the Evangelical Christians, who are responsible for giving Bush a second term, want to get their religious beliefs passed through Congress and they don't want a MODERATE Jew from a blue state slowing them down. They're even having a "Pro-Life Pray-In" to stop Specter. They make the guy sound like Ted Kennedy.

It's really sad when there is no place in the Republican party for moderates. The GOP better start to take their party back from the bible thumpers before it self destructs. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

Definition

From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911

Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Site of the Day

fuckthesouth.com

Site of the Day

turnyourbackonbush.org

Quote of the Day

"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved" -- John Ashcroft
(from his resignation letter)

Today I feel a bit safer

ASHCROFT RESIGNS!

One of my wishes came true. I am not very optimistic about his successor, but I don't think that anyone could be worse (except maybe Alberto Gonzales). Ashcroft has no regard for the Bill of Rights or civil liberties and the country will be better off with him gone from the Justice Department. Now if only we can get rid of his USA PATRIOT Act I'd be even happier.

Good riddance Brother Ashcroft!

Lewis Black on the election

From The Daily Show last week:

Eleven states proposed anti-gay marriage amendments and after record voter turnouts every single one passed by a considerable margin....But in the end these ballot initiatives remind us that America is the land where people are free to dream whatever they want, so long as that dream doesn't make midwesterners feel "icky". -- Lewis Black

The blog it is a-changin'

I had a busy weekend and haven't had much time keep up on all of the news. I spent two days surrounded by pregnant women and learning what to do when it's time for the baby to come out.

There's going to be some changes around here (in case you haven't noticed). The most obvious is a new template. I've also added back the BackBlog comments; I think that they are easier to use than the Blogger comments.

Also, at least 55 million of us voted to remove Bush from office. There are signs that actually a lot more than that voted against him. The corporate American media has decided not to cover the story but Greg Palast and others are on it and Bev Harris has filed the largest Freedom of Information Act request in history to get election records. In one Ohio precinct Bush got 4,258 votes out of the 638 votes actually cast. Any findings will not change the fact that Dubya will be our "President" for another term but we can see where there were problems and get them corrected so that the votes of all of those people who stood in line for hours will in fact be counted next time.

Anyhow, people are working on that. What we have to do is focus on stopping the Bush Administration from doing anymore damage. That means keeping ultra-conservative judicial nominations from being approved. It means getting the UN and Europe to put pressure on the Bush Administration to get out of Iraq.

Also, check out the "I am not afraid" campaign and join us. ~~~~~>

Help us take back our country.

More on political capital...

"My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade...if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."
-- George Dubya Bush to Mickey Herskowitz (ghost for writer Dubya Bush and Poppy Bush) in 1999

*****

and Ted Rall on the election: GUILTY, DISGUSTED, AMERICAN

Coming home for the holidays

I have a feeling that the 59,054,087 "dumb Americans" who voted to allow George W. Bush and the neo-cons to keep their jobs will be having second thoughts after the imminent attack on Fallujah. I know that most of that 51 percent of Americans who voted for Dubya don't give a rats ass about brown-skinned foreigners but it might hit home when they start to hear the stories of all the (white, christian) fathers, sons and brothers who will be coming home for the holidays in flag-draped boxes.

The first casualties of the upcoming battle have already occured. British troops from the Black Watch were reassigned from Basra in the south to Baghdad to take over for US troops that will be headed to Fallujah. On the way there several of the Black Watch soldiers were killed in an attack.

Maybe the British people will put pressure on Tony Blair to get their troops out of Iraq. Maybe they can do what the American people are incapable of doing--restraining neo-con aggression.

In his victory speech Bush said that he would reach out to the 55 million people who voted against him.

So today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation. -- GW Bush, November 3, 2004

Then, yesterday during a rare press conference he said, "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals." Hey, that's big of him. It's not much of reach though.

These guys can't even stop spinning after a victory. On Wednesday Cheney called the election results "a broad, nationwide victory" and that "the nation responded by giving him a mandate." Has he seen the map?

So the neo-cons are probably sitting in their bunkers laughing at all of those people who went out to vote for "moral values". They got the job done. They mobilized enough scared old people and homophobic white people to get their boy elected. Now they can carry on with their plan for world domination--until the people realize and admit that they were duped.

Go read this

This Is Where We Begin
by Gia

Four more years

• of erosions to our freedom


• of war without end


• of US imperialistic aggression


• of tax cuts for the rich and corporations


• of lies


• of us and them


• of alienating the world

Poem du jour

by John Greenleaf Whittier

The Poor Voter on Election Day

To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

It was read on NPR's Morning Edition this morning.

Site of the Day

KerryHatersForKerry.com

Let the fiasco begin

Attention Florida cops: please see the U.S. Constitution.

From The Miami Herald November 1, 2004:

Writer hit by police at poll

A journalist and author from New York was punched in the back and arrested by a deputy after he refused to stop photographing early voters waiting on a public sidewalk in West Palm Beach.

By JANE DAUGHERTY

Palm Beach Post

WEST PALM BEACH - A widely published investigative journalist was tackled, punched and arrested Sunday afternoon by a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy who tried to confiscate his camera outside the election supervisor's headquarters.

About 600 people were standing in line waiting to vote early when James S. Henry was charged with disorderly conduct for taking photos of voters about 3:30 p.m. outside the main election office on Military Trail near West Palm Beach.

A sheriff's spokesman and a county attorney later said the deputy was enforcing a newly enacted rule from Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore prohibiting reporters from interviewing or photographing voters lined up outside the polls.
[more]

My Prediction
I predict that Senator Kerry will win by a fairly substantial margin and that the Republicans will challenge the votes in several states and Dubya will not concede gracefully.