Jeb!!! (Bush): His Horrendously Horrible Histories, Part 2
Patrick Andendall Updated and rewritten June 30 2015
Having focused in Part 1 on his business incompetence, his shady dealings and continued links to a CIA/family legacy—a legacy that lies at the root of the United States’ disastrous foreign/energy policy, leading to the Middle Eastern wars, the radicalization of Islam, Pakistan getting the bomb, Iran’s enduring hostility and the loss of any moral authority—let’s spend some time considering Jeb Bush’s true fiber by delving into other aspects of his personal agenda.
As must now be rather transparent, Jeb Bush has achieved nothing on his own account—his resume not only does not exist, need not exist and cannot be allowed to exist, but it would be awful: Bush is my name. And if you give me a job, a consulting fee, a speaking fee, a donation—give me a title, my family the federal government, the state government—the Oligarchs will reward you. But before digging deeper into corruption and incompetence, let’s take a detour to see what will likely be unleashed if we are so lazy as to not properly analyze this man’s true nature, allowing him to obtain the presidency. The Terri Schiavo affair reveals a great deal more about Jeb!!! than meets the eye.
Let’s analyze what happens when a spoilt brat does not get his way—and then imagine how he would behave as president. Terri Schiavo fell into a coma in 1990. Terri Schiavo was brain-dead, lying in a hospital bed; her husband, but not her parents, want to remove the life support; and doctors do, only to have the feeding tube put back in. This reversal happened because of the absurd “Terri’s Law.” The Florida legislature, in emergency session, passed “Terri’s Law” in 2003. This law gave Florida Governor Jeb Bush the authority to intervene in the case. Governor Bush immediately ordered the feeding tube reinserted.
As reported by Politico Magazine in the paragraphs below, the seven state Supreme Court judges took less than a month to dismiss unanimously “Terri’s Law” in August 2004:
“If the Legislature with the assent of the Governor can do what was attempted here,” Chief Justice Barbara Pariente wrote in her ruling, “the judicial branch would be subordinated to the final directive of the other branches. Also subordinated would be the rights of individuals, including the well-established privacy right to self-determination. No court judgment could ever be considered truly final and no constitutional right truly secure, because the precedent of this case would hold to the contrary. Vested rights could be stripped away based on popular clamor. The essential core of what the Founding Fathers sought to change from their experience with English rule would be lost.”
This was followed by the autopsy (2005): “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.”
Having read the autopsy, Jeb!!! communicated with the top county prosecutor, Bernie McCabe, trying to find weaknesses in the husband’s version of events. It would appear that the prosecutor was being pressured into reopening the case.
Michael Schiavo gets to set the record straight as Politico continues:
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.”
“It was such an abuse of authority,” Felos said. “I think that really raises red flags about his character and his fitness to be president. Jeb!!! didn’t get his way in the Schiavo case. I think he tried to take it out on Michael.”
That, Michael Schiavo said this month, is what makes Jeb Bush “vindictive.” “Knowing that he had no standing in this, he made it worse for everybody,” he said. “He made life, for a lot of people—the nursing home people, the local police, lawyers—he made everybody miserable.”
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.
It seems that Jeb!!! just does not understand the concept of losing, of not getting his way. Why would he? His Dad had everything every step of the way. He must have observed his brother achieving the highest office, in highly questionable fashion both times—you barely have to worry about counting the votes if your family ends up defining how to count votes. Then his brother launches an illegal war and destroys the economy, but his minders barely blink, and consequently no real ramifications for the Bush clan. In Florida Jeb!!! pushed through what was clearly an unconstitutional law that was blocked by the Florida Supreme Court. One wonders if the US Supreme Court would be so motivated to blunt Jeb’s!!! absolutism.
Schiavo himself jumped in:
Bush has never said he’s sorry. He wasn’t. What he was sorry about is how it turned out. “I wish I could have done more,” he told reporters the day of the death.
Other politicians have said they’re sorry, though, Michael Schiavo said. “I’ve had politicians come to my home and apologize to me for what they did to me.” Names? “No names.” But he mentioned Barack Obama and something he said during a debate in Cleveland with Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries in early 2008. The question was about what he’d like to have back.
Noting that he not heard from Jeb Bush, Schiavo concluded: “Why? Give me an answer. Why? Why? What was Terri Schiavo to you? Why? Tell me why. Why do you think you had the right to be involved? Why would you put me and my family through hell? And what did you gain from that? And after you lost, why did you pursue it? What did you gain from that?”
Jeb is a Catholic and purports to be pro-life. This is a stance that troubles me for so many fundamental reasons 1) Pro-life people tend be far more pro-death in virtually any other context; 2) fundamentalist pro-lifers, by trying to force their views down other people’s throats, actually make abortion reform more difficult—thus, this fundamentalism leads to more abortions, not less; 3) pro-life should have nothing to do with Christianity; this is an invented value 4) but the worst aspect of his supposedly devout Catholic views is his willingness to cherry-pick from the scriptures. While on the one hand the Pope, being the infallible messenger of God (for a Catholic), would support Jeb’s!!! fundamentalist views on pro-life, it is thus jarring when Jeb!!! treats the Pope with utter contempt on the issue of how to handle the environment. He said in the context of the Pope’s declaration about the climate: “I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope.” This arrogant response, made significantly more repugnant by the fact that not only is the Pope the infallible messenger, but also the Pope holds a technician’s degree in chemistry. Thus, on a spiritual level he would have infinitely more knowledge than our empty-headed Jeb!!! but here on earth, on a civilian level, his scientific understanding would surpass Jeb’s!!! by a massive degree. The Pope would have something very simple to say to Jeb!!! on this issue:
When we exploit Creation, we destroy the sign of God’s love for us. In destroying Creation, we are saying to God, “I don’t like it! This is not good!” `So what do you like?’ “I like myself!” Here, this is sin. Do you see?
All of which is above a spoilt brat’s head.
But none of this is as important as Jeb’s biggest failing—his determination to try and force his religious views down the throats of the judiciary. The Founding Fathers fully understood the dangers of people like Jeb Bush, with their relatively infantile philosophies—and their deeply considered safeguards withstood Jeb Bush’s barrage whilst under attack from a mere governor. I doubt if these same safeguards will be quite so safe when under siege from a dictatorial president with a decidedly Supremely Stupidparty Court, a court that has temporarily reprieved itself on the issues of gay marriage and Obamacare. Two decisions that while electrifying were hardly surprising
It’s not Just the Courts who can expect to have infantile opinions thrust down their throats—but Women too.
Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) around the country have been exposed many times over for distributing medically inaccurate information, misleading women about the full range of their reproductive health options and claiming that abortion makes people go insane. Jeb Bush is proud to say that the state of Florida helped pay for these deceptions.
“We’re the only state, I believe, to have funded with state monies crisis pregnancy centers to provide counselors so that these not-for-profits . . . could act on their mission,” Bush said Monday during an interview with Focus on the Family. “It was a godsend for these crisis pregnancy centers and a lot of babies’ lives were saved.”
Bush is wrong on two counts. Florida is far from the only state to funnel public dollars into anti-choice alternative-to-abortion services, and the money diverted to fund CPCs is far from a “godsend,” particularly for the women who wind up at these centers in need of actual health care.
NARAL Pro-Choice America reports: “Many CPCs intentionally misinform and mislead women seeking pregnancy-related information. In fact, some CPCs may force women to watch anti-abortion films, slide shows, photographs, and hear biased lectures. No CPC will refer women to an abortion provider—and in fact, some may refuse even to provide information about or referrals for birth control. These practices block women from making fully informed choices about their reproductive health and may endanger women’s health by delaying access to legitimate health-care services.”
Jeb Bush—the Midwife of Stupidparty—for the Birth took place in 2000, in Florida
From OccupyDemocrats:
As Jeb Bush prepares for his imminent presidential campaign, the American people must keep in mind just who this man is and the crimes he committed rigging the 2000 presidential election, which put his brother George W. in the Oval Office, set us on the road to the Iraq War, the Great Recession, destroyed America’s standing in the world, altered American history forever.
Jeb Bush just so happened to be the Governor of Florida during that election, and as you may recall, the Florida vote was so close that recounts were requested and eventually declared his brother the winner. Katherine Harris, Jeb’s secretary of state and the co-chair of the George W. campaign, organized the election system that somehow ended up losing or spoiling the ballots of hundreds of thousands of African-American voters, who just so coincidentally tend to vote Democratic.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
The Florida governor’s office in Tallahassee made 95 telephone calls to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, its advisors, lawyers and staffers during the 36-day recount period, records show. At least 10 calls came from an office number used primarily by Jeb Bush, including one call to a private line in George W. Bush’s gubernatorial office in Austin.
Another call from Jeb Bush’s number went to Karl Rove, his brother’s campaign strategist. One went to the Texas governor’s chief of staff, Clay Johnson. Another went to Michigan Gov. John Engler, who soon flew to Florida to monitor the ballot recount in Broward County. Additional calls were logged to cell phones assigned to Bush campaign staffers.
For once the whole story comes together, the evidence is hard to ignore. To return to OccupyDemocrats:
Vanity Fair reported that “Information came pouring in faster than anyone could digest it—about polling places that had been understaffed, about voters who had been sent on wild-goose chases to find their polling places, about blacks barred from voting, and about police roadblocks to keep people from the polls.” Commissioner Victoria Wilson of the US Commission on Civil Rights concluded that “There emerges a confluence of circumstances that indicates intimidation and harassment of the Florida voters, and that was set in motion long before the November election.”
The Welfare Wife: During his 1994 campaign, Bush said that women on welfare “should be able to get their life together and find a husband.”
What—Women get Equal Pay?
This is clearly not an important priority—although as his campaign progresses his team will figure out a way of putting a better spin on it. “Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) appeared completely unfamiliar with a major bill aimed at eliminating the wage gap between men and women when he was asked about the measure this week.”
First Family Values
The Obama family will be an impossible act to follow—but Jeb’s wife and their kids have all had run in’s with the law. Just imagine if the Obama family had had just one of these transgressions. Jeb!!! also committed a felony by claiming to be Hispanic on the electoral roles. But Bushes don’t get uprooted by laws.
The Black Vote: “During his first failed campaign for governor in 1994, Bush was asked in a debate what he would do to help African Americans. ‘Probably nothing,’ he replied. In 2000, his administration purged 12,000 eligible voters from the rolls [according to the Brennan Center for Justice] because they were incorrectly identified as convicted felons. More than 40 percent of them were African Americans.”
In the aftermath of the South Carolina mass shootings, an event that represents the perfect storm of bigotry, the penny just did not want to drop in Jeb’s deadened head.
Even though the shooter has admitted that his motivation for murdering nine African-Americans at a South Carolina church was racially motivated, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has disqualified himself from office by refusing to say that the killings were racially motivated.
Bush was asked by a Huffington Post reporter about the shootings, and he said, “I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.”
Having permanently dug that hole, surely only an idiot would keep digging? This mass shooting was a confluence of Stupidparty Confederate racism, revisionist history and an infantile Gun Culture. So what does Jeb!!! have to say about that?
New gun control measures are not the way to prevent mass killings such as the shooting deaths of nine people in a South Carolina church, the Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said on Saturday.
Now, just think about this for one moment. This know-nothing, know-it-all has already figured it out. Gun control an issue that 85% of Americans (82% of gun owners) agree would be desirable—no, that cannot be an answer. By making that statement, he is nurturing the deadly mythical belief that more guns make you safer. This is a myth that I eviscerate by shining the spotlight of the Stupidparty economist and pseudo-mathematician John Lott, who literally wrote the book that inspired such odious ignorance. His Math is in fact quite easy to destroy. It is equally easy to prove that more guns make you less safe.
Charter Schools:
Here’s the thing to understand about charter schools. They may be a good idea when the motivation is to strengthen public education—but they are a terrible idea if the motivation is profit, or if the agenda is determined by an Oligarch. This, of course, is not something we would expect Jeb!!! or Stupidparty in general to understand.
The Failed Charter School: After winning just 4 percent of the black vote in his failed first run for governor, Bush teamed up with the Greater Miami Urban League to start Florida’s first charter school. In 1999, the state implemented a grading system at Bush’s insistence. His own charter school received a D. By 2008, the school had earned a C- and was $1 million in debt; the state shut it down that year.
The Shady Charter School Operator: Mother Jones reports:
In 2010, Bush gave the commencement speech for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, an Ohio online charter school owned by William Lager, a big GOP donor who has served on Bush’s Digital Learning Council, which promotes for-profit online schools like ECOT. (Lager’s companies have also sponsored conferences hosted by Bush’s education foundation.) The school was far from a model for the future. At the time Bush gave his speech, ECOT’s graduation rate had never exceeded 40 percent. A 2001 state audit found that though the state had paid the school tuition for more than 2,000 students one month, only seven students had logged on to ECOT’s computer system. When state auditors couldn’t find the rest of the school’s alleged student body, ECOT was forced to repay Ohio $1.7 million. School founder William Lager’s private companies have earned more than $100 million from online schools that perform worse than any of Ohio’s worst brick-and-mortar public schools.
Back to Business—Jeb Business
Nigerian Scam Artists—you know all those emails you get from Nigerian scam artists offering to send a million dollars if you just send them some money, the emails you delete on receipt because you are not a dope. But Jeb!!! is always trying to line his pockets, and because it is so easy for him, he is just not smart enough to keep out of trouble.
From the Miami New Times:
Just in time for the latest round of Jeb for Prez speculation, the juiciest scandal tied to Florida’s former governor is headed back to court. The courts are revisiting a two-decades-old charge that a company Bush co-founded spent millions bribing Nigerian officials with federally loaned money to secure a lucrative deal selling water pumps in the African nation.
Now the government is trying to get $74 million in damages back from the company.
The New York Times reports:
In 2007. Just before the financial meltdown, Jeb!!! was hired by Lehman Brothers, in a transparent effort to secure political clout in order to try and stave off its collapse. The epically unqualified Bush signed on as a paid adviser (and transparently connected “token”) to the financial giant just as the firm was on the brink of collapse.
As it sought to recruit well-heeled investors, an untested and unprofitable Miami company named InnoVida brought aboard a trusted Florida figure in 2007: Jeb Bush, the former governor and the brother of a sitting president.
For potential stockholders, the imprimatur of Mr. Bush, who joined InnoVida as a paid consultant and a member of the board of directors, conferred credibility on the young start-up.
That credibility did not last long. It turned out that the leaders of InnoVida, a manufacturer of inexpensive building materials, had faked documents, lied about the health of the business and misappropriated $40 million in company funds, records show. The company went bankrupt in 2011, its founder eventually went to jail and investors lost nearly all of their money. For a different take on this story see the Washington Post.
Mr. Bush sat on the board of Swisher Hygiene, a soap maker, at a time when, its executives acknowledged, their financial statements were unreliable and their accounting practices inadequate. That admission contributed to a plunge in stock price that has wiped out more than three-quarters of Swisher’s value and touched off a wave of shareholder lawsuits. Several have named Mr. Bush as a defendant, accusing him and fellow board members of insufficient oversight.
Think Progress adds:
Ideon: In 1995, Jeb!!! joined the board of directors of Ideon Group . . . Things headed south for the company, leading to significant layoffs. In 1996, Kahn was removed as CEO and Bush and the board voted to sell Ideon to CUC International. Bush resigned soon after that. And the shareholders of Ideon filed suit against Bush and other directors, alleging stock manipulation. The successor company settled the lawsuits for about $15 million and the Ideon directors avoided having to admit any wrongdoing or pay any of the damages. Bush claimed he did not know of the company’s problems when he joined the board and did everything he could do to save the company.
The terrorist:
The Guardian reports:
The brother of President George Bush, the Florida governor, Jeb Bush, has been instrumental in securing the release from prison of militant Cuban exiles convicted of terrorist offences, according to a new book. The Bush family has also accommodated the demands of Cuban exile hardliners in exchange for electoral and financial support, the book suggests. Last year, after September 11, while the justice department announced a sweep of terrorist suspects, Cubans convicted of terrorist offences were being released from US jails with the consent of the Bush administration, according to the book, Cuba Confi
dential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, by Ann Louise Bardach, the award-winning investigative journalist who has covered Cuban and Miami politics for the New York Times and Vanity Fair.
From Mother Jones: “In 1989, Jeb Bush successfully lobbied his father, who was then serving as president, for the release of Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, who allegedly orchestrated the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people in 1976 and other terrorist attacks. Bosch, who was in a federal prison on an immigration violation and dubbed an “unrepentant terrorist” by then-Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, was a cause célèbre for Miami’s influential Cuban population—a voting bloc that Jeb!!! needed to launch his political career.”
The Guardian: “According to the justice department in George Bush Sr.’s administration, Bosch had participated in more than 30 terrorist acts. He was convicted of firing a rocket into a Polish ship which was on passage to Cuba. He was also implicated in the 1976 blowing-up of a Cuban plane flying to Havana from Venezuela in which all 73 civilians on board were killed.”
What makes this doubly sickening are the links all the way back to the JFK assassination:
As revealed by a Cuban, Fabian Escalante, who later became head of Cuba’s Department of State Security: “He and (fellow exile) Orlando Bosch were in the thick of the Kennedy plot. Remember, both he and Posada were part of this terrorist mechanism set up in New Orleans, which is where the plot was hatched to assassinate Kennedy.”
More Shenanigans with Far Right/CIA/JFK/ Cuban Community—Thanks again, Dad, and thanks, taxpayers:
From Family of Secrets: Jeb!!! “set up shop in Miami and established strong ties to the right-wing Cuban exile community. He was quickly brought under the wing of Armando Codina, a real estate developer and longtime political supporter of the family and its staunch backing of the Cuba embargo; Jeb!!! got a 40% share of the real estate company’s profits without investing in the firm. The duo were bailed out for a loan default with taxpayers footing the bill, in excess of $3m.”
The only good thing that can come out of a Jeb!!! run for the presidency is that the facts about the JFK assassination—which are now all hiding in plain sight—will allow the American people one last chance to learn from what actually happened and its disastrous consequences.
The International Business Times reports: Jeb Bush Funneled Almost $2 Billion in FL Pension Funds to Brother’s “Pioneer” Donors
While Jeb Bush was governor of Florida, state pension officials committed at least $1.7 billion to financial firms whose executives were “Pioneer” fundraisers for his brother’s presidential campaigns. To achieve Pioneer status, the fundraisers had to amass at least $100,000 worth of bundled contributions to one of George W. Bush’s campaigns:
An International Business Times analysis of Florida government documents and a list of George W. Bush’s bundlers compiled by Public Citizen found that 11 firms that received new Florida pension investments under Jeb Bush were Pioneers. IBTimes also analyzed data from the Florida Division of Elections and Political Moneyline to determine how much money executives from those firms donated directly to Jeb Bush’s campaigns, George W. Bush’s campaigns, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Florida between 1998 and 2006.
Here are some of the companies:
Blackstone Group: Donated $99,000, received $150 million
Carlyle Group: Donated $69,000, received $275 million
Deutsche Bank: Donated $200,000, received $450 million
Freeman Spogli: Donated $743,000, received $50 million
Goldman Sachs: Donated $1.5 million, received $150 million
Hicks Muse: Donated $189,000, received $25 million
J.P. Morgan Chase: Donated $64,000, received $100 million
Lehman Brothers: Donated $499,000, received $175 million
Morgan Stanley: Donated $1.1 million, received $150 million
Prudential Financial: Donated $406,000, received $100 million
UBS: Donated $147,000, received $100 million
Governor Jeb Bush, Scripps Institute Pipe Dream—Reuters reports:
By nearly all measures, the plan to transform bedroom communities into biotech corridors by attracting Scripps and other research institutes has fallen short of expectations, despite $1.3 billion in state, city and county funding. . . . By the end of last year, the investments, including the funding of Scripps, had generated 1,365 jobs, the data showed, just under a quarter of the original projection of 6,000 direct and indirect jobs by 2019 and far from the more ambitious target of 44,000.
Wages for the jobs are high, but so, too, is the cost to Florida’s taxpayers at about $1 million per job.
Documents obtained by Reuters from Scripps Florida Funding Corp, which oversees the state’s payments to Scripps, show that direct and indirect contribution to Florida’s economy from the institute totaled $52.5 million in 2013, far from the originally projected $3.2 billion by 2019.
The Washington Post, summing up Bush’s legacy as governor (a period of rapid economic growth before the 2008 meltdown):
“He led the enactment of tax cutsthat will drain the state of needed revenue for health care and children and senior citizens—and we already rank at the bottom of the nation in those services,” said Karen Woodall, a lobbyist for migrant workers and the poor. . . .
But while Florida led the nation in job creation, much of that was in low-paid service industry jobs that left many Floridians without health insurance and scrambling for affordable housing amid a real estate boom that helped fuel business-friendly tax breaks.
The Odious Hypocrite:
One of the most repulsive events during the 2004 Presidential contest between Bush Jr. and John Kerry was the “swift boating” of John Kerry. The fact that Bush Jr. almost certainly acted with criminally negligence in the Texas Guard during the Vietnam War, a supposedly cushy safe job arranged for by his Daddy, to keep his little brat out of harms way—the fact that the Bush Jr. re election team had the audacity to attack John Kerry’s stunning Vietnam War record -is enough to make any critical thinker want to throw up. John Kerry was a legitimate War hero, George Bush Jr, many believe should have gone to jail. But the Bush family need not worry about mere laws. Sadly this blemish on American political history does not stop here – because like every thing else about the Bush brat Jeb!!!—he is just too stupid, too entitled, to let sleeping dogs lie. Just recently the Joker Donald Trump tweeted that John McCain was only a war hero because he got captured. By Trump standards this was accidentally not totally off point since John McCain behavior as pilot was highly questionable in addition to the fact that he was just a lousy pilot. Not so “Top Gun” Tom Cruise, more maverick without any talent—just connections. Regardless, this was Jebs!!! response to Donald Trumps tweet – that seems harmless enough:
It is that second part of the tweet that is that reveals a stunning lack of self awareness. On the face of it, who could disagree with the sentiment.
Well one such person, recent history reveals, is Jeb Bush. As Think Progress reports:
In 2004, a group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spent millions of dollars attacking the military service of John Kerry, who was then the Democratic nominee for president. The group claimed that Kerry lied about his service and was awarded military honors he didn’t deserve. The basis for these claims were definitively proven false, but the group carried on with their campaign anyway. (The claims were first published in a book by Jerome Corsi, who would later gain fame for insisting that Obama had a fake birth certificate and was not born in the United States.)
After the campaign Jeb Bush, then Governor of Florida, sent a letter to George Day — a member of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth who appeared in television advertisements trashing Kerry. Day said Kerry, a recipient of the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts, would “go down in history sometime as the Benedict Arnold of 1971.” In his letter, Bush thanks Day and the “other Swifties” for their “support of my brother in his re-elecction.” “I simply cannot express in words how much I value their willingness to stand up against John Kerry,” Bush wrote.
Here is the actual letter:
By the by – The George Bush Sr. “war hero” moment is also very suspect, to say the least. But one of the many benefits of being a Bush is ones ability not only to create (a catastrophic) history, but also to rewrite it or at least frame it.
Jeb!!! the Deceiver
First, there was never a “law” passed pertaining to this. There was a directive issued by the Department of Defense that limited the carrying of firearms by military personnel to those in specific positions, such as those working for the Military Police. Oh, and that directive was enacted in 1992 – while his father, George H.W. Bush was president.
But this false allegation is even more infantile in the light of the fact that such directives are highly unlikely to make it to the Presidents desk – so to blame any President, reveals ignorance and or deceitful political opportunism.
Another Bush—Another Blunt Tool in the Shed—Another Poisoned Tree Foreign Policy Hack. With the elite education that he had had access to throughout his life and brought up in an environment swimming in foreign policy shenanigans, only an entitled spoilt idiot could develop a Palin-esque foreign policy acumen.
As discussed in Part 1, George Herbert Walker Bush is more responsible than any other single individual for the USA’s crude foreign policies that have led to a number of avoidable Oil Wars and caused the USA to lose its innocence, its moral authority, while creating instability and hatred around the world. But Jeb!!! comes from that same well, and his ignorance is bottomless. He is so oblivious that he plans on rebuilding with the very same tools of absurdity.
Clearly, Jeb Bush realizes that because of his brother, foreign policy will be a minefield for him during his campaign. So he is keeping mum, right?
Well no, he is just not smart enough to do that. No, Hillary would not have invaded. Only a Bush would have invaded. The US had won the war before it had even begun. The Iraqis were cooperating with the U.N. weapons inspectors, who were pleading for more time. The vote for war had succeeded in preventing the need for war.
It is interesting that one foreign policy issue is very near and dear to Jeb!!!—specifically, Obama’s popular and totally rational outreach to Cuba. Hopefully, I have provided sufficient information about the Bush family’s very strong links (via the CIA) to the far right, staunchly anti-Castro exiled Cuban community. This loyalty, this blood bond, is steeped in a long partnership of continued state secrets, corruption, quid pro quos (political paybacks) and assassinations:
As Foreign Policy reports: “There are some signs that young Republicans are more open to a deal with Havana, but Jeb Bush has consistently staked out a hawkish position on the issue. ‘[I]instead of lifting the embargo, we should consider strengthening it,’ Bush said in a Dec. 2 speech at a U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC event in Coral Gables, Florida.”
One does not need to be psychic to know what his position on Israel and Iran is going to be. Just read the tea leaves: “On Thursday night, Bush was feted here at a VIP dinner held by Sheldon Adelson inside the billionaire casino magnate’s airplane hangar. When one donor told Bush, ‘I hope you run for president in 2016,’ the crowd of about 60 guests burst into applause, said a donor in attendance.”
The Washington Post story continues: “Bush also met privately with Adelson. One person with knowledge of the conversation said that the former governor was ‘very laid back and comfortable’ and that they did not discuss the 2016 campaign.”
Adelson, having wasted his money on his first puppet, Gingrich, would have happily given Mitt Romney $100m—or even much, much more—if he had not been destined to lose. Both Romney and Gingrich were happy to mirror Adelson’s extreme views on the Middle East.
Jeb Bush Stands with the Traitorous 47
Jeb!!! responds to a letter to Iran’s leaders by 47 GOP senators. Talking Points reports: “‘The Senators are reacting to reports of a bad deal that will likely enable Iran to become a nuclear state over time,’ Bush said in a statement. ‘They would not have been put in this position had the Administration consulted regularly with them rather than ignoring their input.’”
Since the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, probably wrote the letter for their puppet Tom Cotton, it is shameful for political leaders to be so easily beguiled by foreign interests.
This was Jeb’s headline: “Instead of projecting leadership and defending American values, he [Obama] has withdrawn from the stage or chosen to trust our enemies.”
Now, if someone wants to have an honest debate that is fine. But Jeb!!! has immediately destroyed his own credibility before he even gets to his supposed substance. The problem with this statement—it is not said by a statesman. To suggest the Administration trusts anyone—let alone our supposed enemies—is not only a blatant falsehood, but also reveals a total lack of depth in foreign policy expertise. But hey, who needs depth when you can collect hundreds of millions of dollars from zealots like Adelson?
Secondly, Obama has not withdrawn from the stage but is making other countries contribute or even lead when addressing various hot spots.
It seems it is not till the year 2015 that Jeb Bush has twigged that foreign policy is extremely complex and requires nuance: “After giving a detailed answer about nuclear weapons in Iran, he said, ‘The more I get into this stuff, there’s some things you just go, you know, “holy schnikes.” This is, like, serious stuff.’” No shit, Sherlock—you’ve just now figured that out! What type of bubble have you been living in? Oh—the Bush Baby Brat Bubble. Yet even though Jeb Bush is clearly and self-admittedly clueless, don’t expect him to not pass judgement on the work of hundreds of experts slogging away over the last six years—because Jeb!!! certainly cannot be naive, can he? . . . The Times of Israel weighs in: “Jeb Bush, a likely Republican presidential candidate, criticized the Iran nuclear framework agreement as ‘very naïve’ during a visit to a Manhattan Jewish day school.” Perhaps Jeb!!! should go back to the classroom before pontificating on Iran or any other foreign policy question. But have no fear—this vacuum will be filled by the Bush family foreign policy Vulcans. Who needs expertise if you just bomb everything and everybody? How tough can that be?
I will end with a quote from Salon, back in February 2015 that discusses Jeb Bush’s very weak inaugural speech on his foreign policy credentials and the fact that he sounds as ill-informed as his brother:
Some Republicans have publicly expressed doubt about whether Bush’s presumptive-nominee strategy is the right one. “It’s not a good thing for any campaign to project an air of entitlement,” former Romney advisor Eric Edelman told Josh Rogin.
But what if an air of entitlement is all you’ve got?
Casper T. Green says
Jeb Bush so9unds dumb as a box of rocks.