The other thread is still open and active (Bush Legacy I), with 137 comments and rising. However, as is so common on this board, it has morphed and taken on a life of its own. Originally launched to "celebrate" and identify the Bush Legacy, it has degenerated into a lot of the same old same old. Meanwhile, though, the President continues to astound us with his evil and twisted ways. Well, some of us. I can't wait to see what the next Democratic President does with some of the powers this President has established for him ... you know, the powers that Republican hypocrites applaud and defend, now, but will wail and moan about within another year or two.

Here are three more, all related, legacies the President is leaving behind. These stories were all included on a single page of my local newspaper, under the topic of "Nation" (a page dedicated to summarizing key national stories).

(1) Unable to get Congress to enact cuts to Medicaid that would act to reduce health coverage for poor people, the President simply ordered a series of seven rules changes that would effectively do the same thing (mostly affecting how money is "saved" by "consolidating service to rural communities and to the poor). The House, on a 349-62 vote, passed a bill yesterday to block implementation of those rule changes. Two-thirds of all House Republicans joined all Democrats in voting "yes" to void the rule changes. All fifty governors oppose the rule changes. All fifty state directors of Medicaid oppose the rule changes. The President threatens to veto the legislation if the Senate passes a similar resolution.

The legacy -- we no longer are a country ruled by law, but instead by rule; if you can't legislate it, write an executive order to make it happen.

(2) A similar legacy has been created in the Department of Education. Unable to pass a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, popularly now known as No Child Left Behind), the Department has simply changed a few rules and added some new ones to reflect its absurd notion that ALL children will be AVERAGE by 2014, or else all public schools will be closed down or under private management. Again, government by fiat, not by law.

(3) More than half the scientists working at the EPA say they have been pressured, in one form or another, by political appointees at EPA to modify or change findings to conform to policy decisions. This is not new, is it? Just off the top of my head I recall such modifications, threats, omissions, and/or rewritings being publicized in policies related to climate change, power plant emission standards, toxic chemicals, salmonid status, clear-cutting of burned areas, the effect of dams, to name just a few. Just wait until the next President decides to use an Executive Order to give everyone with a certain color of hair some form of affirmative action, claiming that all the scientific and academic evidence that HIS agencies can find support the notion that they are at an extreme disadvantage compared to people of the dominant hair color (and then publishes "all" of that "scientific" evidence that the "independent" scientists working in his agencies have produced on the subject)