When Barack Hussein Obama takes the oath of office, he will receive more than the reins to the executive office of the U.S. government; he will inherit the rulership of empire, one that no American consciously voted for.

As the ignominious Presidency of George W. Bush draws to its close - punctuated as it was by illegalities of international enormity - and he heads to Texas to chop brush, effortlessly total quad bikes and choke on the odd Pretzel, can any act redeem six dark and dangerous years, which have reminded the world that the “land of the free” was founded on land grab, pillage and blood, which continued unabated across the globe, ending with (so far) Afghanistan and Iraq's genocidal invasions, now adding to that in Gaza with US supplied weapons and US government approval.

Forget Barack Obama's staff making contact with a governor charged with corruption. What's got everyone talking is the president-elect's fine first form.

Included in the latest list is Charles Winters, who died in the 1980s in Florida. Winters helped ship arms and aircraft to Jews trying to found their own state in the Middle East. He was convicted of violating the Neutrality Act and served 18 months in prison. Two others, Herman Greenspun and Al Schwimmer, also were convicted but did not serve time. They were later granted presidential pardons.

More shoes for GW Bush the war criminal!

Bush: "... There have been no attacks since I have been president, since 9/11. One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take ...

Raddatz: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

Bush: Yeah, that's right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand. .."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will travel to Washington for a "farewell" meeting with President Bush, a Palestinian official said Friday, as impending leadership changes raise questions about the future of peace talks.

After having tried to explain away the collapse of several Wall Street brokerage houses by saying, “Wall Street got drunk,” it appears that it is Bush who is suffering from bouts of drunkenness.

Still, Bush's second term isn't over, and an array of prominent -- or notorious -- offenders are hoping that the president will rise above principle and spare them prison time or wipe their criminal records clean. Some are former government officials, such as Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from defense contractors, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, whose sentence for perjury was commuted by Bush last year. Others, such as junk-bond king Michael Milken and former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling, were convicted of white-collar crimes.

Never before has a president pardoned himself or his subordinates for crimes he authorized. The closest thing to this in U.S. history thus far has been Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence. Bush is widely expected to follow that commutation with a pardon. Not only did Libby work for the White House, but he was convicted of obstruction of justice in an investigation that was headed to the president.

As George W. Bush's presidency winds down, the Republican Party's greatest problem is that it doesn't appear to be reaching much of anybody who isn't already watching Fox News. Bush leaves behind a party that looks less like a coalition than a clubhouse.

Can a president pardon members of his or her own family? Yes. Nepotism is frowned upon, but constitutionally there is nothing to prevent a family gift of pardon.

Can a president pardon himself or herself? No. The framers of the Constitution developed their ideas from English common law, and there is no tradition of self-pardon there. In our system, it would be seen as claiming that the president above the law.

In horse racing, when you run consistently, either good or bad, it's called running "true to form". In displaying the breathtaking incompetence obvious in US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's shifting of the policy emphasis of the US$700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), at least it can be said that Bush administration is running well true to form.

For the past eight years, George Bush watched, and assisted as some eight to twelve million illegal migrants crashed U.S. borders to displace American workers while they wreaked chaos in American schools, hospitals and prisons. At press conferences, he said, "They do the jobs that Americans won't do." While reports show illegal aliens killed more Americans via drunk driving, murders and rapes than combat soldiers suffered death in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Bush no longer speaks about illegal migrants doing the jobs that Americans won't do. Gees! Can't figure that one out now, can we?

AUDIO:http://www.apfn.net/CC25/L001I081115-mcclellan.MP3

It wouldn’t be the George W. Bush we all know if our shamed president didn’t spend his remaining White House days in a final fit of polarization.

In the next few weeks, the Bush administration is expected to relax environmental-protection rules on power plants near national parks and uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.

Bush is expected to further change the rules to expand the role of mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia.

The Bush administration is expected to try to get some of the rules into final form by the week before Thanksgiving.

The regulations have already had periods of public comment, and no further comments are being taken.

Beset by war on two fronts, a rapidly emptying national Treasury and the worst economic crisis in decades, Barack Obama and George Bush are trying to ensure that the transfer of power between them goes as smoothly as possible.

Simon Schama on the presidential legacy of George Bush

This week the George W Bush era will draw to a close.

President Bush's political resiliency in his home state has eroded significantly over his nearly eight years in the White House, with Texans joining the rest of the nation in registering sharp disapproval of his job performance as the nation's chief executive, according to a newly released statewide poll.

In the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, America said it was going to war for its ideals, but the way Bush went about it was a gross affront to the very ideals he claimed to be defending.

Whoever is elected president in the coming November 4 American election will inherit a most miserable situation on nearly all fronts. This is because George W. Bush has been one of the worst presidents the U.S. has ever had, if not the worst.

The White House on Friday dismissed suggestions that U.S. markets would be suspended so international financial rules could be rewritten amid the turmoil that has gripped markets for weeks.

When it comes to the current financial crisis, it's become pretty clear that an appearance by President Bush doesn't calm nerves. It rubs them raw.

In one fell move, Bush was able to unite the fractious Arab street against the US, but unite them he did. At no time, not even during the Crusades, have the Muslim Arabs been so united against one enemy or series of enemies. The US/UK invasion was heavy handed failed to involve other Arab regimes, with the exception of the leadership of the absolutely corrupt Saudi and Kuwaiti monarchies.

President Bush swindled America into unnecessary wars. His motivation appears to have been his religious fervor and serving the behest of Israel’s agents in Washington, the Neocons and AIPAC.

Last week he again used massive fear-mongering to bail out Wall Street’s bankers at taxpayer’s expense.

Not since the race to go to an illegal preemptive war in Iraq have I seen President Bush pull out all the fear stops like he did Wednesday night, in an attempt to hard-sell the bailout of $700 billion dollars for his Wall Street friends and their banker, mortgage companies, and hedge fund buddies.

Can President Bush pardon himself of crimes like warrantless spying, torture, and aggressive war? Can he pardon his subordinates for following his instructions, and do so before they're even indicted? There's a good chance he'll try it. There's also a chance some Congress members will preemptively push back against such preemptive pardons, by legislating limitations on pardons, by introducing an article of impeachment, or simply by staking out a public position.

On a range of major foreign policy issues over the past year, Bush has pursued strategies and actions very much along the lines of what Sen. Obama has advocated during his presidential race, according to the Illinois Democrat's campaign and many diplomatic and security experts.

Part of a proposal for Guantanamo Bay legal detainees, the provision before Congress seeks to “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”

The Bush Regime imbeciles don’t know when to stop. With the world still rolling in laughter from John McCain’s claim that “in the 21st century nations don’t invade other nations,” the moronic US secretary of state declared: “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed.”

This from Condi Rice who is “proud” of the Bush Regime’s invasion of Iraq.

Marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush is planning several stops Wednesday along the Gulf Coast.

A federal appeals court yesterday struck down a Bush administration rule that prevented states and local governments from imposing stricter monitoring of pollution generated by power plants, factories and oil refineries than required by the federal government.

The British Government began an Official Secrets Act prosecution today against two public servants for leaking a secret minute of discussions held between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush on April 16, 2004. In the course of the discussion, Bush complained bitterly about Iraq war coverage by the Al Jazeera network and suggested that the Al Jazeera international broadcast headquarters in Qatar be bombed in order to silence its coverage of the Iraq war.

Writers love to derive metaphors from the slightest provocation, but honestly, I could live and write to be 100 and never again be served up a metaphor as apt or as chilling as the sight this weekend of Bush as a lonely face in the crowd at Beijing, a mute, clapping spectator to grand opera of dazzling pyrotechnics both of the gunpowder and the human variety, and at the very same moment half a world away, our race's ceaseless capacity for inhumanity.