Jeb Bush's Flailing Campaign

While some in the GOP establishment may be worried, I am loving watching Jeb "Jebbie" Bush's campaign seemingly sink and head towards implosion.  The latest polls show Jebbie at only 4% among GOP voters despite his huge campain war chest.  Between his idiot remarks and no real plan other than his brother's failed policies, Jebbie has little to offer. Even the Christofascists who had near orgasms over his role in perpetuating the Terry Shiavo circus have moved on.  A piece in Salon looks at Jebbie's much deserved misfortunes.  Here are excerpts:

The Jeb Bush “Don’t Panic, Everything Is Fine” campaign is up and running. With his poll numbers in decline, Jeb is rolling out endorsements and assuring reporters that he’s meeting fundraising targets and will have plenty of money to take the Jeb 2016 machine all the way through the primary season. The arc of Jeb’s campaign is following a very Bush-like trajectory – he started the nominating contest with a “shock and awe” strategy of winning the primary early by scaring off all other pretenders; now he’s fighting off an unexpectedly resilient insurgency and promising that everything will work out in the end because he’s prepared to, ahem, stay the course.

To justify Jeb’s continued presence in the race, his campaign is making the argument that Bush’s path to victory is to wait for all the other candidates to fade or implode, which will clear the way for him to win the nomination through attrition . . . 

Right now he’s digging up oppo on two candidates who could conceivably siphon away his donors and establishment backers: Marco Rubio and John Kasich. And while Romney was viewed as “good enough” by conservatives, those same voters have made it pretty clear they have little respect or patience for another Bush.

That helps explain why Jeb, in the latest poll out from Pew, pulls in an absurdly low 4 percent of the Republican vote. That’s a worrisome enough sign for Jeb’s campaign, but when you dig into the poll’s internals, you start to see just how much trouble Jeb is in.

According to Pew, 66 percent of Republican voters say immigration is “very important” when deciding whom they’ll vote for in 2016, and 43 percent of Republican voters are more likely to support a candidate who promises to deport every undocumented immigrant in the country. . . . Jeb, who is a relative moderate on the issue and preaches tolerance for immigrants, barely registers among this group.

More worrisome for Jeb is the Republican electorate’s disdain for what is supposed to be his strongest selling point: his experience. According to Pew, just 29 percent of GOP voters say it’s more important for their candidate to have “experience and a proven record” than “new ideas and a different approach.”  

[W]hat reason do Jeb’s people have to think that voters will ultimately coalesce around their guy when there’s little indication he has anything the Republican electorate is looking for? Having sufficient money to compete doesn’t really do you much good if no one is willing to vote for you. 

I hope he continues to sink in the polls and puts a nail in the Bush political coffin.

Jebbie Bush Can't Escape His Family Baggage

What do you do when your brother was perhaps the worst - or at least close to the worst - president in American history and you have unrestrained ambition (and ego) to want to be president yourself?  If what is being heard from Jebbie Bush's still unofficial campaign are to be believed, you campaign without mentioning your last name.  Apparently Jebbie and his advisers think the American public is so stupid they'll forget about the disasters rained down on America by Jebbie's idiot brother.  While that view may hold with the insane GOP base, it surely will not fly with most of us who don't make a practice of worshiping ignorance.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Jebbie's effort to scrub his last name from his campaign.  Here are highlights:

A banner in the town square says “Happy 90th Barbara Bush.” Postcards read “Kennebunkport: 2 presidents, 1 town.” A local gift shop is selling unofficial Jeb Bush 2016 magnets.  In this coastal hamlet made famous by George H.W. Bush and his cigarette boat, it is hard to escape the Bush family — but Jeb Bush is trying hard to do so.

The past month has brought into stark relief the fundamental dilemma posed by Bush’s lineage, even as his front-runner status fades. He repeatedly stumbled to answer questions about the now-unpopular Iraq war started by his brother and has been visibly conflicted about whether to embrace or play down the policies and reputations of his closest relatives.

He conceded last weekend to CBS that distancing himself from his brother George W. Bush “is not something I’m comfortable doing.”

[T]he party faithful are increasingly seeking younger, fresher candidates — they’re “Bushed out,” as Barbara Bush has told visitors here in recent years.

And so when Jeb Bush’s anticipated presidential bid begins June 15, he will seek to set himself apart from his brother and father — an effort that will form one of the abiding themes of the impending campaign, according to aides and close friends.

He will make his announcement at a Miami community college under the moniker of his nickname, leaving the surname behind. There probably won’t be “Bush” on the “Jeb 2016” campaign paraphernalia. On stage will be his Mexican-born wife, Columba, and their three grown children. Neither of Bush’s parents will attend the announcement, and aides won’t say whether any of his siblings will, either.

Al Cardenas, a longtime Bush friend, said that polls have tightened because media attention is too focused on Bush’s family history and not on his record as Florida governor. “It’s about Bush, not Jeb,” he said.

Bush has told voters repeatedly in recent months, “I have to show what’s in my heart” regarding his family. But he also said recently that a presidential run “can’t be about the past; it can’t be about my mom and dad, or my brother, who I love. It has to be about the ideas I believe in to move our country forward.”

The disconnect, of course, is that while Jebbie he says that wants to break with the family political past, he's surrounded himself mostly with the advisers of his idiot brother - advisers that took us to war in Iraq based on lies and who helped set the stage for the worse economic crash since the Great Depression.  Jebbie's actions do not fit with what he claims to be selling.  Oh, and let's not forget about Jebbie's role in the Terri Schiavo debacle while governor of Florida.

Jeb Bush - Pandering Whore Fans Christofascist Anti-Gay Fears

The despicable George W. Bush used gay marriage bans to help boost Christofascist turnout in the 2004 election cycle and now his brother Jebbie is proving himself to be equally despicable and making statements that legalization of same sex marriage nationwide could force church pastors to conduct same sex weddings.  The danger of that happening is zero since under the First Amendment, religious denominations set their own rules and regulations about marriage ceremonies and a host of other rituals.  Jebbie knows this is true and even Antonin Scalia backed down when he tried to play that canard during oral arguments this past week.  The take away?  Jebbie will say and do anything - including blatantly lie - to pander to the ugliest elements of the GOP base.  The Washington Blade looks at Jebbie's shameless conduct.  Here are excerpts:

Likely Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush echoed fears on Thursday ministers would have to perform same-sex weddings if the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality — despite assertions from LGBT advocates such a ruling would have no bearing on the clergy.

The former Florida governor made the remarks during a National Review Institute summit in D.C. in an exchange with National Review editor Rich Lowry. The moderator asked Bush if press reports were accurate he wanted a fix to the Indiana religious freedom law signed by Gov. Mike Pence seen to enable anti-LGBT discrimination.

“I didn’t say that,” Bush said. “I supported Pence. I think he needed to create clarity the law was not an attempt to discriminate against people, it was an effort to provide some space for people to act on their religious conscience.”

Bush called for finding a balance in law between that prohibits government discrimination against gay, lesbian and bisexual people, but enables individuals to act on their conscience.

“We need to get to a place where government’s not going to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation, and at the same time, make sure that there is ample space for people not just to have a religious view, or just to be religious, but to actually act on their religious view,” Bush said. “Conscience is what we need to protect, and I fear that we’re not finding that balance right now.”

As an example of a potential lack of balance, Bush cited concerns expressed by U.S. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia during oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Tuesday that clergy would be forced to perform gay weddings if the court ruled for marriage equality. The response from U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli to the concerns was inadequate, Bush said.

“I read some of the transcript, and the solicitor general in defense of the government’s position, when, I guess it was Scalia or someone asked about this question of ‘Well, does that mean that the church or other religious institutions are discriminating if they don’t want to participate?'” Bush said. “And he said, ‘That’s not what’s in front of you today.’ Now maybe I’m misinterpreting that remark, but my interpretation of that was, ‘Well, that might be in front of you tomorrow.’ And that’s where I think we need to focus.”

Bush’s account of the exchange is faulty. Scalia indeed expressed concerns during oral arguments that ministers may be forced to conduct same-sex weddings, but the attorney before the bench at the time was Mary Bonauto, civil rights director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, who gave assurance no clergy would be forced to participate in a same-sex wedding.

“If one thing is firm, and I believe it is firm, that under the First Amendment, that a clergyperson 

cannot be forced to officiate at a marriage that he or she does not want to officiate at,” Bonauto said at the time.

Also responding to Scalia’s concerns during the arguments was U.S. Associate Justice Elena Kagan, who said under current law many rabbis in the Jewish faith don’t marry Jews to non-Jews, but are still able to fulfill their constitutional requirements.

Evan Wolfson, president of the LGBT group Freedom to Marry, said the solicitor general, LGBT advocates, the Constitution and even several justices made clear ministers would be exempt from any ruling on marriage.

“It’s called the First Amendment,” Wolfson said. “Non-gay couples of all different religious views have been marrying for several centuries without it being a problem, as more recently have same-sex couples of all different religious views in 37 states.

Let's not forget Bush's role in the Terri Schiavo debacle.  The man will do anything to prostitute himself to the Christofascist extremists.

Jeb Bush’s Brainless Trust

Posts on this blog have not been kind to Jeb Bush - I'm trying to thank of a good nickname for him, any suggestions? - and with good reason.  From his disgusting role in the Terri Schiavo circus to his refusal to accept any responsibility on his family's part for the disasters in the Middle East and the great recession, one cannot feel even a shred of confidence that Jeb has learned anything over the last 15 years or more.  I'm sorry, but tapping an openly gay communications director and claiming that you are your own man just aren't enough to convince me that Jeb would not bring us a third term of Bush/Cheney regime - something that is terrifying to contemplate.  Maureen Dowd has a column in the New York Times that underscores Jeb Bush's obnoxious and frightening refusal to say what he would do to atone for the sins of his brother and truly move Americans other than the 1% towards a better future.  Here are column highlights:

I had been keeping an open mind on Jeb Bush.  I mean, sure, as Florida governor, he helped his brother snatch the 2000 election. And that led to two decade-long botched wars that cost tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. The nation will be dealing for a long time with struggling veterans and the loss of American prestige. Not to mention that W. let Wall Street gamble away the economy, which is only now finally creeping back.

In his foreign policy speech in Chicago on Wednesday, Jeb was dismissive toward those who want to know where he stands in relation to his father and brother. “In fact,” he said, mockingly, “this is a great, fascinating thing in the political world for some reason.”

For some reason? Like the Clintons, the Bushes drag the country through national traumas that spring from their convoluted family dynamic and then disingenuously wonder why we concern ourselves with their family dynamic. Without their last names, Hillary and Jeb would not be front-runners,. . . 

The last two presidents in his party were his father and brother, and his brother crashed the family station wagon into the globe, and Jeb is going to have to address that more thoroughly than saying “there were mistakes made in Iraq for sure.”

He says he doesn’t want to focus on “the past,” and who can blame him? But how can he talk about leading America into the future if he can’t honestly assess the past, or his family’s controversial imprint?

In his speech, he blamed President Obama for the void that hatched ISIS, which he also noted didn’t exist in 2003 at the dawn of “the liberation of Iraq.” Actually, his brother’s invasion of Iraq is what spawned Al Qaeda in Iraq, which drew from an insurgency of Sunni soldiers angry about being thrown out of work by the amateurish and vainglorious viceroy, Paul Bremer.

[F]or Bushworld, Jeb is the redeemer, the one who listens and talks in full sentences that make sense, the one who will restore the luster of the Bush name. But if you want to be your own person, you have to come up with your own people.

W. was a boy king, propped up by regents supplied by his father. . . . Jeb, too, wanted to bolster his negligible foreign policy cred, so the day of his speech, his aide released a list of 21 advisers, 19 of whom had worked in the administrations of his father and his brother. The list starts with the estimable James Baker. But then it shockingly veers into warmongers.

It’s mind-boggling, but there’s Paul Wolfowitz, the unapologetic designer of the doctrine of unilateralism and pre-emption, the naïve cheerleader for the Iraq invasion and the man who assured Congress that Iraqi oil would pay for the country’s reconstruction and that it was ridiculous to think we would need as many troops to control the country as Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, suggested.

If he wants to reclaim the Bush honor, Jeb should be holding accountable those who inflicted deep scars on America, not holding court with them.  Where’s the shame?  For some reason, Jeb doesn’t see it.

Jeb's brother nearly destroyed America.  Do we want another Bush presidency when Jeb refuses to even recognize the mistakes of the past and, worse yet, is surrounding himself with those who help bring about the disasters?

Jeb Bush is No Moderate and Is a Pig Headed Fool

Michael Schiavo, the husband of the late Terri Schiavo,who became a national cause for the Christofascists before she was finally taken off life support, has little nice to say about Jeb Bush. While Jeb Bush is marketing himself as a "moderate" - at least by current GOP standards - the Schiavo incident shows that when confronted with a choice between pleasing the Christofascists in the GOP base or accepting medical and scientific knowledge, Bush consistently chooses ignorance and religious insanity.  Past actions are always a better indicator of what one will do if elected than words said on the campaign trail to get elected.  Bush's past actions offer little to support his current claims of being a moderate.  Politico Magazine has lengthy and detailed coverage on the issue and the Schiavo debacle in particular.  What's frightening is that Jeb Bush seems to have the same stubborn mindset as his idiot brother, the Chimperator, where facts don't matter, only he personal belief.  Here are excerpts:

Michael Schiavo called Jeb Bush a vindictive, untrustworthy coward.  For years, the self-described “average Joe” felt harassed, targeted and tormented by the most important person in the state. “It was a living hell,” he said, “and I blame him.”

Michael Schiavo was the husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-dead woman from the Tampa Bay area who ended up at the center of one of the most contentious, drawn-out conflicts in the history of America’s culture wars. The fight over her death lasted almost a decade. It started as a private legal back-and-forth between her husband and her parents. Before it ended, it moved from circuit courts to district courts to state courts to federal courts, to the U.S. Supreme Court, from the state legislature in Tallahassee to Congress in Washington. The president got involved. So did the pope.

But it never would have become what it became if not for the dogged intervention of the governor of Florida at the time, the second son of the 41st president, the younger brother of the 43rd, the man who sits near the top of the extended early list of likely 2016 Republican presidential candidates. On sustained, concentrated display, seen in thousands of pages of court records and hundreds of emails he sent, was Jeb the converted Catholic, Jeb the pro-life conservative, Jeb the hands-on workaholic, Jeb the all-hours emailer—confident, competitive, powerful, obstinate Jeb. Longtime watchers of John Ellis Bush say what he did throughout the Terri Schiavo case demonstrates how he would operate in the Oval Office.

The case showed he “will pursue whatever he thinks is right, virtually forever,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. “It’s a theme of Jeb’s governorship: He really pushed executive power to the limits.” . . . . “He may be wrong about something, but he knows what he believes.”

And what he believed in this case, and what he did, said Miami's Dan Gelber, a Democratic member of the state House during Bush’s governorship, “probably was more defining than I suspect Jeb would like.”

[Judge] Greer cited “overwhelming credible evidence” that Terri Schiavo was “totally unresponsive” with “severe structural brain damage” and that “to a large extent her brain has been replaced by spinal fluid.” His judgment was that she would not have wanted to live in her “persistent vegetative state” and that Michael Schiavo, her husband and her legal guardian, was allowed to remove her feeding tube.

Even one of the law’s [Terri's Law] architects up in Tallahassee expressed unease.  “I hope, I really do hope, we’ve done the right thing,” Republican state Senate president Jim King said. “I keep thinking, ‘What if Terri Schiavo really didn’t want this at all?’ May God have mercy on us all.”  Bush had no such qualms.

“Terri’s Law” had mandated the appointment of a guardian ad litem, and Jay Wolfson, a respected lawyer and professor of public health at the Stetson University College of Law and the University of South Florida, issued his report in December. . . . he wrote, Terri Schiavo was in “a persistent vegetative state with no likelihood of improvement” and “cannot take oral nutrition or hydration and cannot consciously interact with her environment.” He wrote that the practically unprecedented amount of litigation consisted of “competent, well-documented information” and was “firmly grounded within Florida statutory and case law.”

The seven state supreme court judges took less than a month to dismiss unanimously “Terri’s Law.” . . . Bush told reporters he was “disappointed, not for any political reasons, but for the moral reasons.” He said he didn’t think it had been “a full hearing.” Legal analysts disagreed. They called the ruling a categorical rebuke of what Bush had done.

In June, the medical examiner released Terri Schiavo’s autopsy, which confirmed what the judges had ruled for years based on the testimony from doctors concerning her prognosis. Her limbs had atrophied, and her hands had clenched into claws, and her brain had started to disappear. It weighed barely more than a pound and a third, less than half the size it would have been under normal circumstances. “No remaining discernible neurons,” the autopsy said. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t feel, not even pain. Forty-one years after her birth, 15 years after her collapse, Terri Schiavo was literally a shell of who she had been.

Today, looking back, what makes Felos, the attorney for Michael Schiavo, angriest about the case is Bush’s letter to McCabe. Even after 18 months of legal wrangling, even after her death, even after the autopsy—after all that—the governor asked a prosecutor to initiate a retroactive criminal investigation of his client. It struck Felos as “odd,” “bizarre”—“personal.”

What makes him “untrustworthy,” he said, is that he fought the courts as long as he did just because he didn’t like the decisions they kept making. “I wouldn’t trust him in any type of political office,” he said.

[S]aid Connor, the Bush attorney, “I never, ever heard Jeb Bush waver in the midst of the political fallout. He was steadfast.”  That’s what bothers his critics.

This very same mindset took America into the disastrous Iraq War.  We do NOT need another Bush in the White House ever.