Jeb Bush

He has got a problem: me.A hundred million bucks, a name that is American royalty, and the apparent backing of the smoke-filled room. What could go wrong? Only everything!


 * Did you mean George Bush, or George Bush, or perhaps Spanish soap star ?

"Comrade" "Low Energy" John Ellis "Please Clap" Bush, better known by his initials ("JEB!"), is an American politician who was Republican governor of Florida from 1999-2007 and a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

A good example for a "her turn" candidate was Bush. Yes, that name isn't lying to you: he's the younger brother of former president George W. Bush and son of former president George H.W. Bush. The establishment gave him $100 million. He went nowhere and dropped out after the second primary (and spent the money attacking Rubio in Florida?). There are going to be academic papers written about what went wrong in Jeb's campaign. The man had everything going for him at the start of this election.

Bush III would have been a record, beating out the Adams (father and son) and the Harrisons (grandfather and grandson), and arguably also the Roosevelts (fifth cousins once removed) and Madison and Taylor (second cousins).

Personal life
Jeb was groomed for the Presidency, but after Karl Rove's victories in Texas, George came from behind and grabbed that brass ring before Jeb could. Throughout W.'s term, Jeb was widely seen as the "smart" brother. In hindsight, though, Karl Rove knew what he was doing when he drafted George for governor.

The Bushes are a model multicultural family. His wife, Columba, was underwhelmed at the prospect of becoming first lady, having grown sick of being paraded around Miami for political purposes.

In 1995, Bush converted from Episcopalianism to Catholicism. He is also a 4th degree Knight of Columbus.

Florida Man
Every "reform" advocated by Jeb Bush is largely indistinguishable from privatization.


 * Turned Florida into a leader in income inequality. Whenever he starts talking on about an "income gap' and "upward mobility", don't listen; it's just spin.
 * Reformed the death penalty to make it easier and quicker to execute people in Florida. Sound familiar?
 * He increased mandatory minimum sentences to juvenile offenders in Florida, increasing the mass incarceration crisis tenfold. Not to worry, Jeb supports building more for-profit labor camps to alleviate the problem.
 * Earned the nickname "Veto Corleone".
 * Crushed Florida's plans for high-speed rail.
 * Rubber-stamped the NRA's Kill At Will Stand Your Ground bill. In Florida, Stand Your Ground laws allow lethal force if you fear for your or someone else's safety, not even their lives, just safety. Not hard to hit that hurdle. Also, the burden of proof is on the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your safety was not in danger. Which is pretty hard to do when you've conveniently killed the only other witness.
 * Granted ownership of the Catholic-only town of Ave Maria to Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria Development Company "in perpetuity". Bush lauded this civil liberties-free zone in his speech at the groundbreaking.
 * Signed Florida Forever into law in 1999. Florida Forever acquired lands that "protect the water quality of rivers, lakes, and springs, wildlife habitat, and provide healthy outdoor recreation opportunities for all Floridians." Basically as Eco-friendly as a Republican Governor has ever been in modern times. (Didn't make him too popular with the Club for Growth, et al.) Though as far as is known he's still a climate change denier, so all of the protection could have been moot if he got the keys to power.

Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me
As we all know, W A is the scarlet letter for adultery in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel of the same name. Bush has taken the public shaming of the novel as part of his life's inspiration (chapter "The Restoration of Shame" in his 1995 book Profiles in Character).

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.

In 2003 (again), he attempted to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a woman who was raped, which apparently violated the Florida Constitution.

Jeb Can Fix It
As Governor, he played a central role in the theft of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. For months, election officials were unable to conclusively tell who was President, in no small part due to mishaps with the ballots that just so happened to be in Jeb's state. The ballots were the notorious "Butterfly Ballots" with the names of the people running on two sides with the holes to punch in the middle. George Bush was at the top left of the ballot and Gore beneath him and Pat Buchanan at the top right, but while punching the first hole was a vote for Bush, the second hole was a vote for Buchanan and the third hole a vote for Gore. Confused? So were the Floridians, because it was apparently too difficult for them to simply look at where the arrows pointed.

His state government first conducted a massive purge of the voter rolls, aimed primarily at African Americans, and helped shut down vote-counting in South Florida in order to preserve his brother's 537-vote lead in the state. Several ballot boxes went missing or were found in a roadside ditch. By virtue of the office she held, Sec. of State Kathleen Harris presided over the recount while herself being an active member of the Dubya's campaign committee and lobbying for a choice position in his cabinet. In the end Gore flipped Florida, but because having elections decided by a handful of judges is the American Way, Bush took it to SCOTUS ("My judges can beat up your judges!"). The final insult: Jeb transferred pension money into organizations that donated to Dubya's campaign.

And yes, he pulled the exact same shit in '04, purging 50,000 voters, mostly African Americans, and handing Florida to his brother.

Education
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.

Jeb's education "policy" is to funnel federal money to the church via "vouchers". Nearly 70 percent of the students who participated last year attended private religious schools. They've had plenty of time to work that balance out if they cared to. The law that enabled this was struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 for violating the State Constitution on funding religious organizations.

Voucher schools in Bush's home state are basically unregulated. Investigations of programs between 2006 and 2011 in Florida showed a number of schools running in condemned buildings unsafe for human habitation, repeat violent felons teaching/administrating, using students with learners' permits as field trip drivers to save costs (resulting in 2 deaths), reinstitution of corporal punishment, and defrauding the tax payers of almost $50 million. Jeb never instated a standard curriculum for voucher schools, which resulted in curricula referencing Noah's flood as literal science, telling students slavery wasn't all that bad, global warming as a conspiracy, and portraying homosexuals and child molesters using Bob Jones University publications. Other schemes have been uncovered where students learning "business" were found soliciting coins by shaking cans on street corners, and selling illegal drugs. Even if students could have navigated around the terrible schools and education their credits have been declared basically worthless by other high schools and colleges.

He also favors school choice and strict standardized testing. Obviously Jeb is strongly at odds with teacher's unions (granted they are themselves deeply flawed organizations):

And yet, the base still hated him because he supports Common Core. Weird.

2016 Election
He wears glasses, so he's considered to be more competent than his brother, which doesn't say all that much. Unfortunately for him, his attempt to become the third Bush to be President while desperately trying to avoid the "third Bush" part, failed.

The Good
If my father had thrown away a perfectly good presidency by raising taxes, I think one of the things in life that I would learn is, ‘Don’t do that’...”


 * Progressive on immigration, though he eventually caved.
 * Admits that tax hikes may be necessary to close the deficit.
 * Remarked that Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush would "have had a hard time" securing delegates today, a rare moment of lucidity
 * Fluent in two languages (his brother has yet to be fluent in one)
 * Wouldn't mind having a...erm, bush on his ticket
 * If he gets elected, Poland will die laughing.

The Bush
When it comes to my brother, there's one thing I know for sure. He kept us safe.


 * An extreme hawk:
 * He supports strengthening the Cuban embargo, something which even a good amount of Cuban Americans think is a relic.
 * His campaign adviser is none other than Paul Wolfowitz himself, the mastermind behind Iraq. Bush considers war with ISIS part of the "Clash of Civilizations".
 * He has, inexplicably, gone on record as saying he would have invaded Iraq, but tried to walk that back. After three days, he flip flopped a fifth time before finally saying "Okay, yeah, no, I wouldn't have invaded Iraq."
 * Let's trace it all the way back to 1998, just before he became Governor. In that year, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative think tank, was calling for war with Iraq three years prior to 9/11. The members included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Scooter Libby, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Francis Fucking Fukuyama... and, of course, Jeb Bush. It's all there in black and white:
 * Roasted by Rubio for having “no foreign policy experience”, Jeb shot back with an arsenal of knowledge... like personally training the Abu Ghraib prison guards.
 * Purchasing his son, George, a political office in (where else?) Texas. Stop trying to push for an aristocracy!
 * Thinks the Affordable Care Act should be repealed and replaced with Apple Watches.
 * Supports the War on Drugs despite being remembered as a regular pot smoker as a kid.
 * Blames Mexicans for his daughter's drug addiction. As a Republican who isn't a scientist (except when speaking as an unlicensed gynecologist stating that 500 million dollars is more than America can afford to fund Planned Parenthood clinics), perhaps he should be looking at his daughter's habit of passing bad scripts rather than some black tar from some cholo street pharmacist.
 * Help! We have to fight "evil" encryption by private companies preventing my government from spying on people!
 * Has proven to be just as gaffe-prone as his brother.
 * Will do more to protect the Gulf than Dub—wait, is that ‘Heckuva Job, Brownie’ in Jeb’s campaign ad??
 * Trades on his name, just like his bro. 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.
 * Called net neutrality "crazy" and has vowed to kill it.
 * Thinks poor children should need straight parents to do better in society. He also supported Mike "Ignite the Sodomite" Pence's Religious Freedom bill. This in spite of his own damn state legalizing gay marriage and several counties passing anti-discrimination laws.
 * Advocates public shaming of unwed mothers. This is despite the fact that all three of his own two-parent household children have been arrested
 * Thinks it is "arrogant" of scientists to accurately deduce that climate change is man-made.
 * Showed, in a foreign policy speech, a complete lack of understanding 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).
 * Failed to win his mom's endorsement.

Chaos theory in action


His momentum was strong until he ran into Trump, who rocketed to the head of the polls, despite not actually spending any money yet. Clinton herself pushed for more Trump coverage in the primaries, as it would pull Jeb to the right. Looks like that backfired a little.

Bear in mind that, at the start of the race, Jeb! was raising so much money that headlines were calling it "unprecedented". Suddenly, even multigenerational backers of his family were publicly saying that they won't touch him. He couldn't even spin his campaign operations manager quitting on him in a good light. No new endorsements on the horizon... unless you count Eric Cantor. Now there's a guy with success written all over him.

By January, the campaign was getting kinda pathetic as it dragged poor Ron Paul Barbara Bush out to do an ad for him. He suspended his campaign in mid-February.

Odd thing: The so-called "pee tape" dossier on Trump was sponsored by "an unnamed Republican candidate for President" and then passed into Clinton's hands. The Bushes and Clintons are famous for being collaborative and friendly. Who the heck else in the GOP would hand over valuable intel to Hillary?

Putting aside the logistics (his shitty ground game for starters),, what went wrong?

It Was Acceptable in the 80's
He never had the verbal sparring skills of Trump or Cruz, and his lack of confidence shown through. He was raised to be a fuzzy, grandfatherly politician like his dad was. Right now, America needs outlandish politicians like porn addicts need escalating levels of kinky shit to get off.

Stay the course
Jeb! thought that W. would be his secret weapon in South Carolina, and that Trump's 9-11 comments would tank him. He was caught totally off-guard by lingering resentment of neo-cons, not only among liberals and independents, but bright-red conservatives. He was stuck dumb by predictable questions like "was the Iraq war a mistake?"

Also, he'd have to fight tooth and nail to blame the economic problems of 2008 (four months before GWB left office) on Obama instead of his own brother. The Bush campaign lived (and died) in a neocon bubble.

Took 'er jerbs
GWB billed himself as a compassionate conservative, and on the issue of immigration he at least he tried to live up to it. After the 2012 elections, the establishment decided to wake up and take notice of changing demographics in this country, or else they would never win the presidency again. The demographic they had the best chance of swinging was Latinos, specifically evangelical Latinos. The idea was to soften up on immigration, but keep the rest of the platform exactly the same. This would also play well among the business wing of the party.

Since around 2004-5, though, Congress has steadily lost all perspective on the issue. Republican voters do not want amnesty for illegals. Cantor got primaried partly because he wasn't hard enough on immigration. The Senate attempted to pass reform via the "Gang of Eight" (a bipartisan group of eight senators), and the House scuttled the bill. It backfired so bad that Rubio, who co-sponsored the bill on immigration reform, is now saying he never intended for that bill to pass, uh huh. Trump's victory only strengthened the anti-immigrant faction of the party.

The Tea Party wants to make this a hot button issue for voters. They want to have big arguments about it so they can ramp up the "Liberals are ruining America" rhetoric. Just like abortion, just like social security, just like guns and drugs.

Finish Him
They got defined as "low energy" by a guy who took an escalator to his own announcement.

Jeb? is a wimpy son of greater scions. It's quite amazing what Trump did: Someone who has never been in the political arena was able to take out his biggest competitor—a Bush on top of that!—by redefining Bush. Nobody was calling Bush "low energy" or saying he had no charisma until Trump started repeating it over and over. (Trump's M.O. isn't to attack on actual issues.)

Then the media picked up on it. Pundits started saying it. Comedians were making fun of him for it. And now that's what everyone thinks of him.

Remember "Please clap"? Here's the thing. Jeb's own people made it, because they thought it would play well. There are multiple such videos. Then his campaign imploded and a journalist dug it up and made it viral. People were acting like it's a sign of how his campaign was collapsing—when it was 7 months old. The power of the 4th estate.

After that, Bush kept backpeddling and praying that there's no way America would allow this man-child to stay in the race. But Donald only grew in the polls. (Jeb Bush took his mom out on the campaign trail to pimp him. There is nothing alpha about Jeb Bush! How's that worse than using your daughter to do the same?)