June 19, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

IT'S OUR GOVERNMENT, NOT BUSH'S

People born to wealth often seem to have a sense of entitlement, but George W. Bush has taken the sense of entitlement to a whole new level. He's been a spoiled punk his whole life, presiding over failed businesses, but never taking responsibility. But with a few cronies in the right places and through a total lack of ethics he attained the White House. It has been a disaster for the country and for the world, especially for Iraq. Bush even likes to proclaim the United States government "my government." This article by Michael Winship is at www.commondreams.org:

You’d think that with such a shambles in his wake and his popularity at an all-time low, George Bush would at least partially have relinquished his pride of ownership. Not so.

Here he is the other day, responding to the aborted attempt in the Senate to legislatively declare “no confidence” in Attorney General “Fredo” Gonzales:

“They can try to have their votes of no confidence,” the president said, “but it’s not going to determine — make the determination — who serves in my government.”

MY government? Now that’s entitlement. And you thought George Bush didn’t have a vision for America. Unfortunately, it’s one big MySpace page, from sea to shining sea. Or, rather, shining me.

Luckily, as this lame duck presidency wobbly waddles toward the sunset, cooler heads are prevailing in both the public and private sectors. Read, for example, last week’s majority decision in the case of Al Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari national held in military custody. Written by US Circuit Court Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, it states that simply designating someone an “enemy combatant” does not allow the White House to imprison them indefinitely without charges.

NINE MILLION KIDS WITH NO HEALTH INSURANCE

Any time you talk about a national health care system conservatives bound up and down and screech about "socialized medicine." We have the best health system in the world, they'll pontificate. It's the best system in the world for the people who can afford it. Millions of Americans, including nine million children, do not have health insurance. It's another disgraceful failure by the federal government to address the needs of its citizens. This article by Bob Herbert is linked at www.truthout.org:

You won't see these stories on television, but Marian Wright Edelman and Dr. Irwin Redlener could talk to you all day and all night about children whose lives have been lost or ruined because they didn't have health insurance.

This is not a situation one associates with a so-called advanced country. That you can have sick children wasting away in the United States, the wealthiest nation on the planet, because medical treatment that could relieve their suffering is withheld by men and women with dollar signs instead of compassion in their eyes is beyond unconscionable.

Ms. Edelman is the president of the Children's Defense Fund, and Dr. Redlener is president of the Children's Health Fund.

Both are appalled at the embarrassing fact that nine million American children have no health coverage at all. Among them are children with diabetes, chronic asthma, heart conditions, life-threatening allergies and so on. In many instances they are left untreated until it is too late.

Leaving children uninsured is a form of Russian roulette, Dr. Redlener said.

"All children should be covered," said Ms. Edelman.