Maybe it’s the Boyz II Men I’m listening to, but this video almost made me feel bad for Bushy Boy (note I said almost)

Oh Bushy Boy - It is so hard to say goodbye to yesterday isn’t it? I wonder if there will be any sunshine after the rain for you Mr. (almost former) President?

takepart to say hello to today!

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past eight years, it’s hard to ignore the dismal human rights record of George W. Bush. Where can one begin when you reflect on the human rights abuses, violations of international agreements and government-sanctified torture policies of the Bush Administration? By intimately exploring the stories attached to the infamous photos from Abu Ghraib, our film, Standard Operating Procedure, helped to give us a clearer understanding of the prison which cemented our country’s anti-human rights record and image to the world. Human rights were systematically violated and our global leadership was marginalized because of our policies during the past eight years.

However, since the election, the tide has turned and things are finally looking brighter. President-elect Obama has already indicated a desire to reshape our human rights policies, including closing Guantanamo.

However, for many of the policies changes to occur, the new president and Congress needs to hear from citizens like you and me.  Human Rights First is has made the following a priority for the Obama Administration : the closure of Guantanamo, protection for Iraqi refugees, stop the flow of arms to Darfur and end torture of prisoners in US custody.  Help to make these important goals a reality by signing their letter which will be published in newspapers worldwide.  We voted against torture on November 4th. Let’s help to show the world that we can help to change our policies and have our country return to being the visionary beacon for human rights that we once were. takepart today to sign Human Rights First’s letter.

(photo by habacuc_1988)

Let’s say you’re the outgoing administration, and you’re pretty sure that the new guys coming in are going to try and undo everything you’ve done on environmental policy, in part by replacing the people that made these policies.  What do you do to try to cement your policy, keep these people in jobs, and make it slightly harder for the next administration to do their thing?  The Washington Post has one idea, and it’s called burrowing:

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department’s top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies — including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions — into senior civil service posts.

This means that some key jobs which were Bush appointments now are civil service jobs, which obviously do not roll over every new president.  Now, to be fair, this is certainly not new.  The Post states that, “In its last 12 months, the Clinton administration approved 47 such moves, including seven at the senior executive level.”

It’s interesting that so many of these shifts, though, are happening where environmental policy are made.  It seems that the Bush people think they’ve hit on some pretty good rules concerning taking care of nature.

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Over at 236.com they’ve been posting the 50 reasons we’ll miss President Bush. It’s pretty great, especially since we can laugh guilt free knowing that Obama will be replacing him soon. Their post today also made me a bit nostalgic - I mean where would we be without the internets?

I love my internets!

Also, did I mention that this is the one week anniversary of Obama’s (and our) victory). After the jump is one reason I can’t wait for Obama to enter The White House. 

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It has been a rough 4 to 8 years to be an American, and a time of incredible anger. I think that has become the predominant emotion, replacing pride and apple pie.

Many of us were angered by the way the reign of W began, not with a mandate of the majority but instead with allegations of voter suppression in predominately white regions of Florida, a recount procedure that seemed more akin to a cartoon with then Florida Secretary of State Kathleen Harris serving the role of goofy, and in the end the appointment of Bush to the Presidency by what many perceived as a partisan Supreme Court. The net result for the more than 50% of voting Americans who voted for Gore and not Bush was anger and frustration rather than stubborn acceptance of the will of the majority of their fellow Americans.

During the first term of W, we did not realize the promises made by W to be a compassionate conservative and to bridge the gap of bipartisanship that seemed to overtake Washington during the second Clinton administration. Certainly 9/11 provoked anger (and of course a great deal of fear) in any American who was paying attention. Initially the anger was directed at the “evildoers” – Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That anger, in some quarters, became displaced by anger directed within – first toward fellow Americans who had the misfortune of being Muslim or having the appearance of anyone from the Middle East or northern Asia, much like we treated Japanese Americans during WWII, and then toward the Bush administration once we learned about the warning signs it ignored about the 9/11 attacks, either due to incompetence, denial or vacation. Anger and more anger.

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Adding to the list of irreparable damages left for a legacy, President Bush and his cronies are now set to open 10,000 acres of public land in eastern Utah, to allow for drilling of natural gas and oil.  The Bureau of Land Management plans to auction off the tracts of land, which border three national parks, conveniently one month before Bush leaves office, making it difficult for the next administration to reverse the plan.  According to the New York Times:

National Park Service officials say that the decision to open lands close to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument and within eyeshot of Canyonlands National Park was made without the kind of consultation that had previously been routine.

This is a lasting impression we can’t afford to let Bush leave behind.

takepart by supporting the National Parks Conservation Association and help protect these natural treasures.

Related:  Inconvenient Truth of the Day

Photo: Arches National Park, NYTimes

A few months back, I wrote about the unexpectedly welcome news that President Bush asked his cabinet for a plan to protect the waters around some of the most remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, including the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot on earth.  We read that, and we thought, “Huh.  That’s pretty awesome.  We’ll put this one in the win column for this administration.”

Aaaaaannnnnd…not so fast.  There are objections to the plan.  And, not from the most helpful of places.  Richard Dreyfuss The Penguin Vice President Dick Cheney is not onboard with this idea, at all.  The Washington Post reports (and, yes, sorry about the cheap dig at the Vice President…they’re not even original jokes, and all joking aside, I have heard he’s a nice man, in person):

Vice President Cheney and some officials in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have argued that the plan could hurt the region’s economy by barring fishing and energy exploration.

Ah, yes.  Money.  It always comes down to money.

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The US Senate approved a $13 Billion funding package for Amtrak earlier this month, nearly doubling the previous funding for the National Railway. The move comes amidst an amazing confluence of factors, in a world rapidly changing before our very eyes, chief amongst them the record price of gasoline over the past year and the subsequent increase to record train ridership and decrease in the power of the major automobile manufacturers.

With the House of Representatives having past a similar measure last week, the bill now moves to the Oval Office to await the President’s signature in order to be enacted. Not suprisingly, the Bush Administration had threatened to veto Amtrak funding earlier this year, but with the recent passage of the legislation with near veto-proof majorities in both chambers of Congress it is unlikely, though still possible, that Bush would risk the unnecessary embarrassment of having a veto turned over this late in his term.

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Kerry Trueman, our friend of Eating Liberally fame, wrote an excellent piece on the Huffington Post yesterday, warning that our current economic woes are a chilling reminder of former President Jimmy Carter’s call to buckle down and bundle up just like the Waltons.   Encouraged by the renewed popularity of DIY efforts such as gardening and canning, Kerry observes:

We’re reverting to old-timey modes of transportation, too–there’s been a dramatic spike in bike sales and train travel in recent months. And many of us are buying less, learning to make do, and turning off the lights when we leave the room. We are, at last, achieving Jimmy Carter’s dream of a simpler, less-stuff driven life–a dream, by the way, that he shared with another recent U.S. president, George H. W. Bush.

Read Kerry’s blog to learn more about the Bush connection.

And takepart by learning more about Jimmy Carter Man From Plains and staytuned for some DIY tips from takepart.

Matthew Belinkie at Overthinkingit.com just posted a great mash-up he did of “The Dark Knight” and Bush’s Sept. 24 speech on the economy.

The video’s description:

Our society’s institutions are collapsing, and we have lost confidence in our leaders to save us. Wait, didn’t someone make a summer blockbuster about this?

Where do we turn in this time of crisis? Here’s what the Joker thinks about President Bush’s economic bailout.