Jeb Bush
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John Ellis Bush, more well known by his initials "JEB", was the Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007; he's not really that much better or worse than Rick Scott on that front.
Yes, that name isn't lying to you: he really is the younger brother of George W. Bush and son of George H.W. Bush. Perhaps operating under the delusion that the Bush family can net a third presidency, Jeb is now trying to run for the White House in 2016; he's currently the frontrunner, based purely on money.
He's seen as a moderate Republican. Watch as we completely rip that belief to shreds.
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[edit] Family
His wife and children are Hispanic, and useful as an example to be paraded around to appeal to Cuban-Americans in Miami for political purposes of a model interracial family.
[edit] The Good
- Very progressive on illegal immigration and immigration.[1]
- Seems to actually believe in income inequality and recognizes that poverty isn't an issue of willpower.[2]
[edit] The Bad
- Transferred pension money into organizations that donated to Dubya's campaign.
- Supports the War on Drugs[3] despite being remembered as a regular pot smoker as a kid.[4]
- Is an absolute neocon on foreign policy; his top campaign adviser is the mastermind behind the Iraq War himself. Considers war with ISIS a Clash of Civilizations.[5]
- Supports strengthening Cuban embargo, something that even a good amount of Cuban Americans think is a relic.[6]
- Disapproves of marriage equality, despite the fact that his own damn state has legalized it.
- Showed, in a foreign policy speech, a complete lack of understand on basic facts over other countries, such as confusing Iraq for Iran, saying ISIS had 200,000 soldiers when it's actually 20,000, mispronouncing Boko Haram as Boo-koo Haram, and saying the Caliph of ISIS is not the Caliph, but the Supreme Leader (you know, Iran's dictator).[7]
- Pushing his son, George P. Bush, into a political office in Texas as a commissioner. Stop trying to push for an aristocracy!
[edit] Religion
In 1995, Bush converted from Episcopalianism to Catholicism. He is also a 33-1/3rd 4th degree Knight of Columbus.
[edit] The Hail Mary pass
Bush signed into law that gave ownership of the Catholic-only town of Ave Maria in Florida to Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria Development Company "in perpetuity". Bush later praised this civil liberties-free zone at the ground-breaking ceremony.
[edit] Terri Schiavo debacle
In 2003, Bush ran the circus known as "Terri's Law", and inserted his own religious views into what should have been a private family matter. He ordered a feeding tube inserted into Terri Schiavo, who had, by then, been brain dead for 13 years.
[edit] Education
“”Even if we don’t all agree on Common Core, there are more important principles for us to agree on. We need to pull together whenever we can. It starts with a basic question: If we were designing our school system from scratch, what would it look like?
I know one thing: We wouldn’t start with more than 13,000 government-run, unionized and politicized monopolies who trap good teachers, administrators and struggling students in a system nobody can escape.
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| —Jeb Bush[8] |
Jeb Bush is perhaps most crazy when it comes to education. He supports greater school choice, vouchers, and very strict standardized testing.[9] In essence every "reform" advocated by Jeb Bush is largely indistinguishable from privatization.
Perhaps the single most crazy education policy supported by Jeb Bush is the promotion of school vouchers; essentially, school vouchers let parents more easily afford to send children to private schools by subsidizing some or all of the costs that would otherwise be paid for by parents.[10] Unsurprisingly such policies can reduce the cost of education[11] but at the same time come with some significant disadvantages. Most notably school vouchers threaten to undermine the current educational system by putting public and private schools in direct competition, potentially leading to a lack of funding to public schools and a corresponding lower quality education afforded to low income students and minorities.[12] Furthermore these private schools will be less accountable to the government. This means that schools with religious agendas will be supported by voucher programs.[13]
Obviously Jeb Bush is strongly at odds with teachers unions.[14] If his attempts to marginalize public schools weren't enough to get the unions against him, his attacks on unions certainly did the trick.
“”We need to have a teacher evaluation system that is based on teachers being professionals, not part of some collective trade union bargaining process.
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| —Jeb Bush[14] |
And yet, the Republican base thinks he's a liberal on education.
[edit] School vouchers
Bush was behind the push to offer school vouchers across the entire state of Florida. Some 80% of vouchers went to religious schools, many of which had creationist curricula.[15] The law that enabled this was struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 for violating the State Constitution on funding religious organizations.[16][17]
[edit] Business acumen
Following his governorship, he was hired by a thoroughly scam-alicious company known as InnoVida as a $15,000/month consultant. The position led to board membership and stock options. Leadership of InnoVida were involved in drug running and securities fraud.[18][19] Some of his many financial dealings have invited criticism of his trading on the Bush name and of dubious ethics.[19]
[edit] Elections
[edit] 2000
During Jeb's time as governor, his older brother was elected President, in no small part due to a mishap with the ballots that just so happened to be in Jeb's state. The ballots were the notorious "Butterfly Ballots", where Bush was first on the ballot and Gore beneath him, but while punching the first hole was a vote for Bush, to vote for Gore you needed to punch the third hole. No conflict of interest there.
[edit] 2016
“”He has got a problem: me.
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| —W[20] |
He is considered to be more competent than his brother, which doesn't say all that much. At the moment, he is attempting to become the third Bush to be President.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/jeb-bush-illegal-immigration-is-sometimes-an-act-of-love-20140407
- ↑ http://www.ontheissues.org/2013_CPAC.htm
- ↑ http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Jeb_Bush_Drugs.htm
- ↑ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/01/3617867/jeb-bush-admits-smoked-marijuana-wants-keep-pot-illegal/
- ↑ http://www.hughhewitt.com/former-florida-governor-jeb-bush-on-2016-a-third-bush-war-and-big-government-conservatism/
- ↑ http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article4898217.html
- ↑ Salon: Shocking and awful: "Own man" Jeb Bush sounds as ill-informed on foreign policy as his brother
- ↑ http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/17/jeb-bushs-common-core-problem/
- ↑ http://www.ontheissues.org/Jeb_Bush.htm
- ↑ http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/school-choice-vouchers.aspx
- ↑ http://heartland.org/policy-documents/research-commentary-school-vouchers-are-cost-saver-taxpayers
- ↑ http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/86710/school-vouchers-education-republicans
- ↑ http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/civil-rights/religiousfreedom/religfreeres/School-Vouchers-docx.pdf
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/27/jeb-bush-hammers-teachers-unions-education-summit/
- ↑ Science Blogs: Blindly Supporting Blind Faith
- ↑ Court Throws Out Florida School Voucher Program
- ↑ Bush v. Holmes: Supreme Court of Florida No. SC04-2323
- ↑ Jeb Bush missed red flags in Florida business scandal by Chris Frates, CNN Updated 6:00 AM ET, Mon March 30, 2015.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 For Jeb Bush the Businessman, Lawsuits and Bad Publicity by Steve Eder (April 16, 2015) New York Times
- ↑ Jeb's Scarlet Letter: W