President of the United States

Awhile back I wrote about an effort by New Hampshire's Democratic Governor, John Lynch, trying to lead a bipartisan effort to ensure quality healthcare for American children. At the end of that article, I mentioned my own Governor, Eliot Spitzer, was threatening to sue George Bush over healthcare.

Well, Spitzer was true to his word. While Bush and the "drown America in a bathtub" Republicans try to cut healthcare for Americans even further, Eliot Spitzer, joined by Governor John Lynch of New Hampshire, Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey, and Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, are suing the Bush Administration for its failure to follow the law requiring provision of healthcare for America's children.

From the NY State Governor's website:

Governor Eliot Spitzer today announced that a group of states will be pursuing legal challenges against the Bush Administration for violating provisions of the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides affordable health coverage for children in families that cannot afford to buy private health insurance.

The state action was triggered in August when the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) arbitrarily imposed new rules that block states from expanding their children’s health insurance programs. Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington, Arizona, California and New Hampshire will participate in litigation, either as plaintiffs or by filing supporting briefs, against the Bush Administration for violating the provisions of the SCHIP statute.

[Note from the blogdiva : This was first posted in June. I just saw it and decided it needed rescuing from the forums for your cynical enjoyment.]

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According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification is coverage by health insurance.

“The symptoms of PADD are all around us and treating it professionally can do more for our country than any election,” said Dr. Mable Wank in the report’s introduction; she is chairwoman of the Council and a professor at UCLA.

Here are the Council’s main findings on PADD:

Nearly 80 percent of adult American citizens are unable to pay sustained attention to issues and problems associated with their government. They are unable to accept their responsibility as citizens, including their obligation to vote, read in-depth articles and books on political issues, become active members of politically oriented groups, and initiate discussions on current events with friends and family. “The decades-old decline in voter turnout is a direct result of a national epidemic of PADD,” said the report.

This comes from Bob Fertik, our friend at Democrats.com. Seems the media jumped on a story about terrorists coming into the US on student visas. This is expected to be something Bush focuses on in his misState of the Union message and is the latest attempt by Bush to boost his sagging popularity (now finally dipping below Nixon's lowest low) using fear. There are two problems with this. First, people aren't turning to him and trusting him when he whips up the fear machine. They actually realize that if they are still afraid, it shows he has failed. But more importantly, it seems the whole story is based on one single document that has been unsubstantiated. This is reminiscent of the use of false intelligence reports to claim that Iraq was getting enriched uranium from Africa which was used as a (false) excuse to justify invasion. That was also unsubstantiated rumor.

So here, in Bob Fertik's words, is the scoop:

The incomparable Joseph Cannon has once again scooped the media by discovering the Big Lie that will be the centerpiece of Bush's SOTU: the fictional tale of an Al-Zarqawi plot (under direct written orders from Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri) to send 19 terrorists into the U.S using student visas.

After reviewing the three published versions of this story [see Fertik's diary for his review of each version], it's perfectly clear there are no credible facts - no independently verified documents, no identified witnesses, and no suspects. The whole story hinges on a single document, which was not seen by any of the reporters and probably does not exist.

Following close on the heels of my diary on Angry White Men and Conveniently Compassionate White Men, Michael Bouldin posted a pefect video of the person who seems to be the God of the Angry White Men, the person they still think is a good president. This video shows their God in his top form. So here it is, the God of the Angry White Men:

This is out President. This is the man who runs our nation and who feels he is Tsar of the world, Supreme Soviet dictator of all the people. This is the man who the Angry White Men still love despite the failure of all he has done.

Which reminds me of the Charles Rangel comment when asked about Bush. From the Monday, April 4, 2005 Washington Post:

Rangel was interviewed on New York Public Television WLIW21 last Monday night and asked for his quick reaction to various people. The first was Bush.

"Well," Rangel said. "I really think that he shatters the myth of white supremacy once and for all."

Well, he has a point.

In my occasional visits to Daily Kos, I notice that one of the things that will get a comment troll rated faster than anything is advocacy of assassinating George Bush. Given the rhetoric many on the left have towards Bush, citing the huge numbers of deaths he is responsible for, citing his advocacy of torture and his dismantling of Constitutional rights, why NOT discuss assassination as a solution? If someone is that much of a threat to world stability and to American Democracy, shouldn't assassination be considered as a political tool?

Let me be clear: I do not advocate assassination. Advocacy of said action is not the purpose of this diary. Rather I am questioning the taboo that has been placed on the topic. Now let me go into why...

Assassination has always been a political tool, for better or worse. In ancient Rome, although the rights of citizens were gradually eroded by the rising strength of the military and the supreme dictator (what they called the Augustus and we call Emperor), one consistent check and balance to the power of that dictator was the fear of assassination. If the situation got too bad, either soldiers or Senators or both would resort to assassination. Some if the worst Emperors (Gaius Caligula, Nero, Elegabalus...) were removed though assassination. Some of the best Emperors rose to power in the wake of assassinations or imperial suicides under the threat of assassination (Vespasian, and the so-called "5 Good Emperors").

Saw this one on Daily Kos (someone's eyewitness account of strange happenings on the White House lawn). It seems that a terrorist was stopped on the White House Lawn. Here is a file photo of the culprit:

It is amazing how paranoid and strange the Presidency has become during Bush's tenure. I can't help but think that it would have been handled a little less dramatically by earlier administrations. This is nothing if not surreal:

I'm looking out my window next door to the White House. The police have shut down several square blocks around the White House from car and pedestrian traffic. There's a bomb squad parked out front. The issue appears to be a few suspicious objects that have been thrown over the fence at the Old Executive Office building.

These objects include a grocery bag, a stuffed dog, and what appears to be either Elmo or a red Teletubby. So I'm not too worried (now, if it was a purple Teletubby, that would be a different story).

I'll update the diary if anything actually happens.

UPDATE: The cool robot is gone and has left awesome treadmarks all over the Old Executive Office building lawn. 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue have been reopened to traffic. Elmo has apparently been determined to be grating and annoying, but not technically a terrorist threat.