Haven't we had enough of the Bush family?
Jeb Bush is, no doubt, the very best of the Bushes. He successfully ran the State of Florida for eight years and he was definately one of our better Governors. In comparison, his weakling father could only last for four years in office, and George Bush Jr. (our current President) is leaving office as a lame duck President with amazingly low approval ratings and the reputation of being a President even worse than Jimmy Carter.
So, even if Jeb Bush had the star power of Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan, the others in his family have effectively ruined the Bush name forever.
And Jeb seems to know this. In the past, he has said that he wants no part of the office of President of the United States, even though insiders have said for years that Daddy Dearest really wanted Jeb to run in 1998/1999 instead of his low I.Q. brother, Jr.
Jeb is talented, smart, engaging, and marketable. He's married to a latina, speaks fluent Spanish, and has always reached out to the minorities. But, he's a Bush. And that's enough to sink his ship, forever.
Although Jeb was left alone by his father and brother when he ran the State of Florida, would they stay out of his way if he ever became the President? Could we be sure that the stupidity and arrogance that his younger brother exhibited would not be present somewhere in Jeb? And what of his unimpressive father, whom few respected? Will he taint Jeb with poor advice and machinations, as he has assuredly done with Jr.?
The only way Jeb could possibly run would be if he could distance himself firmly from the other incompetants in his family. And as recent photos show, that apparently won't happen.So even if Obama completely screws up the next four years, Jeb Bush doesn't stand a chance.
16 comments:
Yeah, I really don't think there will be another Bush in office in for forseeable future. Thank goodness for that.
Happy New Year.
I've never voted for a republican but I like Jeb Bush. We need to expand our executive search, however.
We're done with dynasty.
Not being up on Florida politics, I always assumed Jeb to be chomping at the bit for his turn. I certainly hope I don't have to think about another election for three years but I'm guessing I have only two at best.
I have no faith in the American public whatsoever that they'll not put another Bush into power.
Having said that, I'd prefer him to the MILF.
Yea - he did great.
1. HIS TREE NAZIS KILLED MY LIME TREE! And you paid for the tree gestapo to do that. Jeb's pals in SOuth Florida seemed to get all the contracts to cut down the trees. Imagine that.
2. His wife was busted smuggling in $50,000 worth of shit from France into Atlanta. None of it was declared, so that there would be no duty to pay. Nothing happened to her.
3. Jeb's anti crime activities cut back funding for rehab, and made it harder for first time offenders to go to rehab. A lot of people went to jail. Then his own daughter is busted in Tallahassee with a pad of stolen prescriptions, pharmacy shopping for things like xanax. Cops found all kinds of pills in her car, along with blank prescription pads. Nothing happened. She got out of the legal system really quick and was sent to rehab, where she was later found with crack cocaine in her shoe. Again - no jail time. But anyone else sent to rehab after a drug arrest who was found with crack inside the rehab center would be sent to jail.
4. The school voucher scam. Jeb's idea. Part of the plan to just kill off public education once and for all.
5. Pushing employees that were part of the Florida retirement pension plan into a privatized plan. I got this really nice brochure explaining how I would make so much more if I agreed to move my stuff into a private account. FL then used that money to invest something like $100 million into ENRON. OOPS!!! But who gives a crap about little people, when you can help those with connections to your family with $100 million of other people's money.
6. Funding for worthless things like DCF were slashed. Only a few kids under the care of the state were killed as a result. But who needs DCF anyway? It is just wellfare.
7. His "devious plan" to thwart voters decision to limit class size by proposing to pay for it with a massive tax hike that would also pay for a high speed rail system that connected Disney World to other cities. This measure failed as those pesky courts made him separate the ballot measure to tie a bullet train funding (billions by the way) to education funding already approved by voters.
8. His efforts to piss on the voters of Borward County, who voted to allow real slot machines at horse and dog tracks. He was behind a few measures to defeat this. For one the whole state got to vote to allow the voters of Miami-Dade and Broward Counties to vote if they could have slot machines. Now why do voters in Tampa get to say what the hell I can and can not vote for in my county? F Tampa! You do not see me asking Tampa to pass all their local measures past me for approval. Anyhow the measure failed (passed) so Miami-Dade and Broward could vote to allow slots. Broward County voters approved it. So Jeb and his henchmen make a bill that would so severely limit the number of machines they could have, the hours they could operate, and proposed a tax rate that would guarantee that the slots would lose money. When this was fought in court Jeb got angry. But he lost. The will of the voters was carried out. In retaliation the Seminole tribe was given the unofficial nod to allow blackjack and other card games - which the dog and horse tracks can not have. So the parimutuels are still on the short end of the stick.
And so on. I am sure there are other things I could bring up.
Jeb is no different. Maybe he is smarter, but that is not saying much. He is just as dangerous and would have the exact same agenda. He did whatever he wanted to do - in spite of the laws HE PUSHED THROUGH and in spite of what voters clearly said they wanted.
In short - he was an ass.
Just say no to Bush
Scott, And Happy New Year to you, too!
M@, I agree.
Ed, I think we'll be LUCKY if we have only two years of peace where it comes to the race for the Presidency.
Daniel, I'm truthfully not very happy with ANY Republican right now. Of course the Dems are not any better, really. You're right about the American public, but that's true for the common man anywhere. Go here to see the vital idgit vote being discussed.
Lazy, Whew! OK:
1. Yeah - the gov't does destroy any citrus when citrus canker is a problem. It keeps it from spreading. Fun? No, but necessary and it would happen in any regime.
2. Don't know about this. Where can I read about it?
3. Drug treatment - From what I've seen (remember I have first hand experience seeing someone go through this) rehab is a bunch of crap.
They tell the addicts that it's not their fault and isn't it a shame they're addicts but they really need to stop doing drugs. No really. Stop. Put down the crack pipe. Aw, you're really disappointing us here. No, you really should stop. Stop, OK? Please?...
So IMHO, jail's better. But that aside: If his daughter was caught w/ drugs (and I do recall this, I believe) then certainly she should've had the book thrown at her.
But this type of perk is typical of governmental kids. The governor before him (Bob Graham) had a daughter that was dumber than a box of bricks. But she qualified to go to UF under the student 'minority' program. Hard to see what sort of a minority a spoiled rich white girl (SRWG) would qualify to be, but then there aren't as many SRWGs as there are poor kids, so maybe she WAS a minority...
4. The school vouchers: GREAT idea, and he was completely correct about this one.
5. Don't know about this one.
6. Sadly, funds must be cut somewhere. It's always a tough call. If he cut funds elsewhere, then there would be screams and accusations from THAT quarter.
7. Yeah, that was stupid and just plain wrong on his part, I'll agree w/ you there.
8. Hadn't heard of this, but I agree w/ you if your version is the accurate one. Of course I don't like gambling anywhere in this state and until the 80s it was unheard of here (except for casinos on American Indian property).
I think he was no worse than Bob Graham in many ways (who was a successful Democrat) but I think he was better than him in others. So, I consider him a decent political choice.
Note that this isn't saying much, as every politician must compromise in some way or other to get where he wants to go.
"The school vouchers: GREAT idea, and he was completely correct about this one"
This is only true if you think the Mexican educational system is a good one.
Vouchers are a terrible idea, just another facet of the privatization scam being perpetrated on America.
1. What canker? It is still the same problem it was before. Only now there is no lime tree in the yard. I have to buy limes now. And where was the "invested" tree? To this day nobody can tell me. And how did tromping from one yard to another, cutting down everything in sight using the same unsterilized tools and the same unsterilized boots and the same unsterilized trucks then hauling all the "infected" trees turned into mulch around in open dump trucks "prevent" canker"? If anything - canker was spread.
Show me one orange tree in central FL that was "saved" from canker. You can't because canker is still here.
2. http://www.nndb.com/people/780/000052624/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/bushs-wife-is-caught-smuggling-clothes-1102279.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02EFD7153CF932A25754C0A96F958260&sec=travel&spon=&pagewanted=all
And so on :)
3. If rehab is a bunch of crap, why was it good for Rush and the governors daughter? Why were they not sent to the criminal justice system? Why were they not treated like the common crack head they were? Because they could afford to pay for private rehab? That should keep them out of jail?
I, on the other hand, have no problems with sending first time non-violent offenders to rehab. It may not work - but then again it might. One thing is sure, jail does not work. So really I think that Jeb's daughter needed rehab. But then again I am not going around running my mouth about how the best place for any drug offender is in prison.
I just find it amusing when those who do advocate nothing but hard prison time for any drug offenders suddenly become huge fans of rehab when THEY become addicted to drugs. Or someone in their immediate family have a problem with drugs.
4. The vouchers were a terrible idea. People did not have any more "choice" than before. The State decided to allow anyone to just start a private school and the vouchers were good at them. It did not matter if the school was accredited or not. So you had many shopping center schools using outdated non-approved books and hiring non certified instructors taking the vouchers. Meanwhile it was pulling money from the public school budget.
And who was running these shopping center schools? Well crooks of course. It was easy money for someone with no morals. Just rent some space, call yourself a "school", and accept the state vouchers.
Some schools were also connected to churches, but they did the same thing. They would teach a non approved curriculum using non approved materials and non certified instructors.
The private schools are also exempt from F-CAT testing. It is optional for them. The state saw to that. So there is no way to measure the voucher schools.
The "good" private schools with a hard earned reputation would also take vouchers - but they wanted more money on top of the voucher. Count on that.
So no, it was a terrible idea.
5. I was part of the FERS for a while. And yes, employees were pressured to switch from the state pension to the privatized plan. Those who did have lost money. It was just another way to take state employees money and hand it to the investment banks, who took huge chunks out in the form of "fees" just so they could piss it away on mortgage backed mutual funds, Enron, and all the other shitty investments out there.
6. Funny that all the cuts seemed to come from social services though. And when the cuts were being made, the state was solvent. Plenty was rolling in from all the inflated property taxes. The state was running a surplus in fact. Of course now the state is broke and I would expect budget cuts - but what was the excuse back then?
7. It was not stupid. It was part of the larger agenda. Kill public education. The elite never wanted the masses to be educated. For centuries what kept those in power where they were was that the masses were uneducated dirt farmers, elbow deep in the royal horse shit in the king's stables. They hate the idea that someone could rise up from the lower classes and become their kid's boss one day.
So the only dumb thing was getting caught on tape saying it. But at least he was being honest.
8. It is true. In 2000 the whole state got to decide if voters in Miami-Dade and Broward county could be trusted to vote on a local issue. This was done because the thinking was that the measure could be shut down that way. Well it passed. And then voters approved slots in Broward. But the state, led by Jeb, decided that voters in Broward were retarded and so they tried to squash the election results. Well the tracks sued the state in court and won. Those darn "liberal activist" courts ruled that a yes vote meant "yes".
Anyhow there is more. I just can not think of it right now. The Bush family are carpetbaggers. Jeb is not a Floridian. He first ran for Governor only a little more than 6 months after buying a FL home. His brother did the same shit in Texas. Only the voters in Texas fell for the "I am a cowboy just like you" lie the first time around. Jeb ran against Chiles, a very well known NATIVE OF THE STATE.
Not some jerk who buys some land then files to run for the highest office in the state only weeks after meeting the very minimum residency requirement.
At least Bush Senior liked to fish for tarpon in the Keys.
Anyhow Jeb announced he would not run for the senate. Unless he was lying. And that is just fine. He has done more than enough for the state already.
How about we have a senator who has actually camped in the everglades? Or someone who has gone canoeing and swimming in the Peace River? Or someone who has gone swimming in the Crystal Rover even though there were alligators here and there? Someone who has hiked in the Ocala National Forest? Someone who knows where Silver Springs is on the map? Someone who has lived through at least one hurricane? Someone who knows what salt water tastes like when it is sprayed in your face?
You know....a real Floridian? And not some faker yankee carpetbagger.
Non-starter because Jeb has always made it known he's never been interested in running for Prez. And like Truman, people will learn to appreciate President Bush's term many years afterwards.
Let's hope things never get so bad that people look back on the Bush years with any fondness.
I'm with Daniel, to his horror!
The American public, in terms of majorities do not have the insight to see what is happening. They are too reactive and short-sighted to understand where the current trends are leading. No doubt, President Bush, who is NO conservative, has introduced the idea of spending our way out of economic crises. Obama will just do a "better" job at it with no angst at all. He'll gladly allow the greatest bailout in all of human history, all the while ignoring history's commentary on those who did similarly. Thanks to Pseudo-conservatives who rename themselves "compassionate conservatives", have acted indecisively by being appeasers of both sides of the aisle. These have paved the way for Obama.
We need conservatives to run in the Republican party. The party itself is so power-hungry that it cannot rediscover the moral compass needed to steer through these dangerous political waters.
Unfortunately, we have a man at the helm now who chases the political winds of community organizers, which is code language for socialists. (How about THAT, Daniel?) I fear the ship will do nothing but end up in the quicksands of a democratic marxism. We need a true leader and visionary, not just a rhetorically slick spokesman for George Soros and co.
To me, I lost faith in Jeb when he failed to fully intervene for Terri Schiavo. His unwillingness to do the unpopular with the possibility of making a political mistake convinces me that he would be similar to his older brother and waver politically. No soup for Jeb.
It aint socialism unless he's spending the money on people, rather than corporations.
And I'll agree that George isnt a conservative, in fact I'm not sure there are any actual conservatives in power within the Republican party anymore (that arent somehow loons, also). Sam Brownback, maybe. Most of them are Authoritarians and Oligarchs, or tools of the same.
The only way to get out of this economic mess is stop spending so much money (that we dont have - and I mean this as a society, not just the government), and make sure that what we do spend it on is stuff that lasts. Infrastructure, education, and any technology that gets us away from the use of that geo-political economic bludgeon, oil.
Anyone who says that a service economy is a good idea just wants a cheap house-servant. The only economy that counts is one that creates something greater than the sum of its parts. Any other kind is just the Maid for the ones who make stuff. And we all know how maids are treated.
Daveaway:
May I also add to your suggestions that with finding alternative energy sources that can legitimately replace oil (not these stupid wind farms, perhaps hydrogen) is for drilling and refining of oil here. Create wealth in our economy by tapping our huge oil reserves, and begin pumping real wealth into our economic system. Not this thievery taxation that transfers wealth. SUCH STUPIDITY leads to socialism. I know you resist this idea, but it is in the making unless we stop it. If we want this, then comrades, we will become a post-Soviet weenie nation like Russia, etc. We need to really make some noise.
I don't know who will listen to us. The Dems are full speed ahead in buying up the GNP, and the Repubs are a bunch of gutless Pelosi lapdogs sitting around licking themselves waiting for the world to end. Pisses me off.
"...the Repubs are a bunch of gutless Pelosi lapdogs ..."
I thought it was the other way around, that Pelosi was a gutless lapdog for the Republicans. But anyway, Congress pisses me off, too (though doubtless for reasons so opposite that they meet coming the other way around). We should've thrown all of them out, and started over from scratch.
If you're going to argue against socialism, you're going to have to find a better spectre to scare us with than Russia. It might work on the rubes, but anyone who knows anything about Russian history can tell you that, operationally, there was little difference between czarist Russia and communist Russia. What makes Russia fail is the corruption and paranoia of its Authoritarian leadership, combined with the fatalistic resignation of its dour culture.
As for domestic drilling, our reserves are not particularly large (a few years worth, at best), and that wont change the fact that we are slaves to our capacious appetites, and that those who control the oil, control us.
This is the reason to find alternative energy sources, to get out from under the monopoly currently running our lives, whether it's unpredictable Arabs who hate us, or corporate fatcats who hold us in contempt.
Of course, we could just put ourselves on a diet, ween ourselves from the massive (and currently unsustainable) energy use that we engage in, but asking for self-control and moderation from Americans is kind of like asking a trust-fund kid to think about getting a job; it aint gonna happen.
No more Bush's!!!
Post a Comment