DOWNLOADS: (128)

PLAYS: (663)

Embed

Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign is off to a bad start. He's flipped-flopped so many times on immigration, no one can tell what his actual position is. And now, instead of being forthright about his W's disastrous adminsitration, he's embracing him.

One of the biggest obstacles facing him if he is to mount a White House run could be his name. There is some resistance in the US, a country proud of its democratic credentials, to electing a third Bush into the White House. But the main problem is the negative feelings still arouse by the George W presidency.

Seeking to confront that issue, the former Florida governor told NBC: "In his four years as president a lot of amazing accomplishments took place. So my guess is that history will be kind to my brother, the further out you get from this and the more people compare his tenure to what's going on now."

Let's look at what history is saying about W's tenure right now:

• While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked.
• President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent.
• The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with the Bush tax cuts, will account for almost half of the projected $20 trillion debt in 2019.
• Early exit polls released on Tuesday evening show that about half of voters still blame President George W. Bush more than President Barack Obama for the country’s economic problems and most cite the economy as their top issue in the election.

Heckuva job!

As for comparing W.'s record to "what's going on now," the Obama administration has produced more jobs in 4 years than Bush/Cheney did in 8 -- not to mention the fact that they haven't suffered the worst mass-casualty terrorist attack in US history, let a US city drown, and presided over the worst financial crash since the Great Depression.

Good luck with that "W. was a great president" stuff, Jeb! It's a winner for 2016.

Every Monday morning, C&L's Nicole Belle joins Nicole Sandler on her Radio or Not show to recap the Sunday talk shows.

This week, the conversation began with a discussion of the myriad of stories that should have been discussed, but weren't....

From Nicole Belle:

There are many, many issues this country is facing that merit a serious discussion on the Sunday shows. For example:

• Rand Paul’s filibuster of the Brennan nomination could have led to a much needed discussion on the use of drones and the oversight executed thereof.
• We could talk about the revelation that banks illegally foreclosed on military members who were fully paid up on their mortgages and how the deregulation of the banking industry made it impossible for people to know who actually owned the note on their mortgage.
• We could talk about how Newt Gingrich’s personal sugar daddy likely broke federal laws against bribing foreign officials and how all that money he spent on GOP politics was likely an investment against an indictment.
• We could talk about how conservatives think it’s an appropriate response to post racist , violent comments to a rape survivor when she dares to suggest that rather than telling women to arm themselves to prevent rape, we should tell men not to rape.
• We could even have a discussion about how racism is still so prevalent in our “post-racial” society.

But no, that wouldn’t happen on the Sunday shows, because those are issues that Americans are actually grappling with. Instead, guess who all five of the major Sunday news shows booked?

Continue reading »

Susie Sampson reacts to the exciting news that Jeb Bush may run for president in 2016. Woo hoo!

DOWNLOADS: (94)

PLAYS: (398)

Embed

Fox & Friends hosts developed a serious case of amnesia this morning as they helped Jeb Bush promote his new book about immigration – yet forgot, as Sean Hannity did the night before - that Bush was for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants before he turned against it in his book. They also forgot the pro-pathway results in Fox’s newly-released poll on the subject – even as they hyped other results from the same poll.

Steve Doocy opened the segment by announcing, “A brand new Fox poll out overnight is showing us where Americans stand on immigration reform.” A graphic on the screen trumpeted the news that 69% of the respondents favor completing new border security before changing immigration policies.

But he somehow failed to point out that another question in the poll found that 72% favor “allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country and eventually qualify for U.S. citizenship, as long as they meet certain requirements like paying back taxes, learning English, and passing a background check.”

That’s a rather curious omission, given that it’s been big news that Bush has backtracked on his support for a pathway to citizenship. Especially when Gretchen Carlson noted in her first question for Bush, “You’ve been talking about (immigration) for a long time.” She later “wondered” whether members of Congress should use his book “as their primer to learning how to get the job done.”

Even worse, Doocy noted that Jeb’s brother, George W. Bush, had proposed a “guest worker program” even as it must have slipped Doocy's mind that W. had also proposed a pathway to citizenship.

Meanwhile, Bush has flip-flopped again. He was also on Morning Joe yesterday (not sure which appearance came first) where he said, “I don’t have a problem” with a pathway to citizenship. He told MSNBC viewers that if a law is crafted “where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn't an incentive for people to come illegally, I'm for it," But on Fox, he had no need to clarify what they didn't bring up in the first place.

At the end of the lapdog interview, which also included chirpy, chummy talk about 2016, Bush said, “It’s cozy here.”

Oh yes, as always.

I know that Republicans must be tempted, because they haven't won the White House without a Bush or a Nixon since 1928, but I think it's safe to say that most Americans have had enough of the Bushes.

LAUER: You've been invited by CPAC to speak before them. You have this new book. It sounds like you're gearing up for a run. Those are the kinds of things people do when they're increasing their public profile. Are you going to run in 2016?

JEB!: That's way off into the future. I have a voice. I want to share my beliefs about how the conservative movement and the Republican Party can regain its footing. Because we've lost our way. [ed. note: See the presidency of Bush, George W.]

LAUER: But you clearly have not ruled out -- you will not definitively rule out a run for president in 2016?

JEB!: I won't, but I'm not going to declare today either, Matt.

"Way off into the future" - LOL. Sure sounds like he's running to me.

Jeb Bush on disrupting the education monopoly so he and his friends can take over.

Let me see if I can keep this simple: Most of these "reform" education organizations are in it to make money. Period. They dress it up, they make inspirational movies about "choice", they talk about "the children," but it pretty much comes down to the basic conservative philosophy: Take a public institution, privatize it, strip it of assets and turn it into a cash cow for investors. It's not about quality, and it's not complicated.

And so the Bush family empire has expanded from the oil business into the education business. No need to give them the benefit of the doubt, we already know what they and their cronies are about: And that's why ALEC is in the thick of this pseudo-reform movement:

A nonprofit group released thousands of e-mails today and said they show how a foundation begun by Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and national education reform leader, is working with public officials in states to write education laws that could benefit some of its corporate funders.

A call to the foundation has not been returned.

The e-mails are between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) and a group Bush set up called Chiefs for Change, whose members are current and former state education commissioners who support Bush’s agenda of school reform, which includes school choice, online education, retention of third-graders who can’t read and school accountability systems based on standardized tests. That includes evaluating teachers based on student test scores and grading schools A-F based on test scores. John White of Louisiana is a current member, as is Tony Bennett, the new commissioner of Florida who got the job after Indiana voters rejected his Bush-style reforms last November and tossed him out of office.

Donald Cohen, chair of the nonprofit In the Public Interest, a resource center on privatization and responsible for contracting in the public sector, said the e-mails show how education companies that have been known to contribute to the foundation are using the organization “to move an education agenda that may or not be in our interests but are in theirs.”

Continue reading »

Brownie, aka former FEMA director Michael Brown, thinks the president jumped in too soon with disaster assistance to New Jersey and New York. No really, he does. Via Politico:

“In the context of the election, I simply said he should have waited,” Brown told POLITICO Tuesday afternoon. “The storm was still forming, people were debating whether it was going to be as bad as expected, or not, and I noted that the president should have let the governors and mayors deal with the storm until it got closer to hitting the coastal areas along the Washington, D.C.-New York City corridor.”

Brown on Monday called out the president for speaking to reporters at FEMA headquarters on Sunday night, when the bulk of the storm had yet to make landfall. “My guess is, he wants to get ahead of it — he doesn’t want anybody to accuse him of not being on top of it or not paying attention or playing politics in the middle of it,” Brown said in an interview with Westword.

Duh. Also because this isn't political, maybe? It's about people's lives, for God's sake.

But then a Twitter friend reminded me about the Bush disaster privatization venture, and suddenly it made sense to see Michael "heckuvajob" Brown hanging out all over the airwaves in a disaster that reminds us all of what a tragedy Hurricane Katrina was. A year ago, Stephen D. Foster, Jr. wrote this post about the Bush investments in private disaster recovery services.

Former Republican Governor Jeb Bush is set to lead a newly formed FOR-PROFIT natural disaster response company. According to the Maritime Executive, Bush’s newly created firm, Old Rhodes Holding LLC, joined forces with O’Brien’s Response Management, a subsidiary of SEACOR Holdings, to form a for-profit disaster response company.

“We are pleased to enter into this partnership with one of the leading response organizations in the United States, backed by SEACOR’s global network,” Bush said. “Together we look forward to helping a broader array of organizations and communities become more resilient through preparation, response, communication and recovery.”

Of course, this response team only helps people for a price. Rather than come to the aid of people affected by a natural disaster out of the kindness of their hearts, like FEMA and other organizations do, the response team led by the former Florida Governor will respond to disasters if the price is right. In other words, they’ll profit off of death and destruction.

So Mr. Heckuva Job Brownie, who managed to get it so very, very wrong during Hurricane Katrina thinks he's going to score a couple of political points and lay a foundation to pimp Jebbie's newest venture?

Yeah, I don't think so. The Obama administration's response to Brownie's insanity was for Craig Fugate to crisply respond with this:

"Better to be fast than to be late," Fugate said in an interview on NPR Tuesday morning.

You betcha.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush hoped to use his Republican National Convention appearance to rehabilitate his brother's shattered reputation. After claiming on Sunday that it was "unbecoming" for Barack Obama to continue to "blame others" for the economic calamity he inherited from George W. Bush, on Thursday Jeb suggested the President should be "spanked" for pointing the finger at Dubya.

Now, there are only a few problems with this approach, not the least of which is that most Americans agree with Obama. In 2004, then Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney defended President Bush from John Kerry by protesting that "The people of America recognize that the slowdown in jobs that occurred during the early years of the Bush administration were the result of a perfect storm." Worse still, even now Team Mitt whines that "Governor Romney inherited an economy that was losing jobs each month" back in the Bay State. As it turns out, President George W. Bush and his acolytes have never stopped blaming Bill Clinton for the GOP's lost decade.

Jeb's brother made that point during his final press conference on January 12, 2009. During a month in which Americans would only later learn that the U.S. economy shed a staggering 820,000 jobs, President Bush passed the buck forwards--and backwards:

"In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth. And I defended tax cuts when I campaigned, I helped implement tax cuts when I was President, and I will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action. And there's a fundamental philosophical debate about tax cuts. Who best can spend your money, the government or you? And I have always sided with the people on that issue."

But while that fundamental philosophical question is still the subject of heated debate, the facts should not be.

Continue reading »

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these the same people who are still blaming Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and even FDR for everything?

President Obama often reminds voters of the dire economic conditions he inherited from the previous president's administration, but President George W. Bush's brother, the former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said it's time for Mr. Obama to take responsibility for the still-struggling economy.

"I think it's time for him to move on," Jeb Bush said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I mean, look - the guy was dealt a difficult hand, no question about it. But he's had three years. His policies have failed."

Bush said he was taught that blaming others was "kind of unbecoming over time - you just can't keep doing that."

He said Mr. Obama should "offer some fresh, new solutions," but added he doesn't expect the president to do so before Election Day.

Polls this year show Americans still give former President Bush a great deal of blame for the state of the economy.

DOWNLOADS: (207)

PLAYS: (1105)

Embed

Heather snagged Jeb! on Sunday's "Meet The Press," explaining why women and minorities are overwhelmingly rejecting the Republican Party.

JEB!: I'm concerned about it over the long haul for sure. Our demographics are changing and we have to change not necessarily our core beliefs, but how we -- the tone of our message and the message and the intensity of it, for sure.

Talk about wishful thinking.

While it's true all of the nativism, race baiting, and women-bashing isn't helping their cause, the reason women and minorities aren't voting Republican is because of policy, not just "tone" and "intensity."

So, the Republicans will have to give up the idea that the solution to our immigration dilemma starts with forcibly deporting 12 million people. They'll have to change their belief that the path to prosperity involves cutting taxes for rich people while slashing services for everyone else. They'll have to give up the radical belief that a zygote deserves the same constitutional protections as an adult. They'll have to stop insisting that the real problem with this country is that, as Paul Ryan put it, too many people (and we know which people, wink-wink) are snoozing on the government "hammock." And they'll have to stop their relentless assault on organizations committed to women's health.

It must be comforting to hear, but it's simply delusional to say Republicans just have a marketing problem.