JEB! OPENED DOOR FOR $240 MILLION ‘BOONDOGGLE’ FEMA SCHEME AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA

Ring of Fire- When Jeb Bush, who is now evaluating a potential presidential run, was governor of Florida, he was known for being highly responsive to his e-mails – especially if you were a GOP donor of note. New e-mails released by theAmerican Bridge last week show that the latest Bush had a cozy relationship with Carnival Cruise Line and that the relationship may have produced a nearly $240 million contract for the company following the disaster of hurricane Katrina.

Just two days after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Ric Cooper, an advertiser for Carnival at the time the contract was made, reached out to the then-governor Bush, writing, “None of us have any idea how to reach out to FEMA or whoever is appropriate. I decided to to my usual ‘I’ll give Jeb a heads-up.’”

What followed was an effort to utilize “two or three” of Carnival’s ship as part of the response effort. The company would be able to recoup income that the ships would generated, would they have otherwise been at sea, under the pretense that the ships would house between 6,000 and 10,000 people.

Cooper, who started this engagement, paid $50,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004 in an effort to help re-elect Jeb’s brother – President George W. Bush. Read more

Mark Levin is not yet on board the Boehner-chauffeured JEB! 2016 Express.

Breitbart News- Nationally syndicated conservative radio host Mark Levin, a former official in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, is calling on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to answer whether he stands with House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Majority Whip Steve Scalise in the wake of a blistering Scalise scandal concerning his longtime ties to a top aide to former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. “We’ve had nonstop Jeb Bush talk the last two weeks,” Levin said in an email to Breitbart News late Tuesday evening. “Is there a reason why he’s silent now about the GOP leadership debacle in the House? They are his supporters after all.” Read more.

The lucrative Obamacare connection JEB! is trying to cut

Washington Post (blog)- The for-profit hospital chain Tenet Healthcare announced on Christmas Eve that Jeb Bush would be stepping down from its board of directors by the end of the year. Bush, who has served on the board of Tenet since 2007, is starting to cut his business ties as he explores a run for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. And there's one obvious reason why keeping Tenet on his resume might not look so good politically: Tenet has benefited greatly from the Affordable Care Act, which much of the GOP base is still committed to repealing. Bush is giving up a lucrative board post. He earned $128,500 in cash plus $170,000 in stock last year for a total of $298,500 according to Tenet's 2013 proxy statement. Read more.

The overrated candidate: The case against JEB! 2016

The baggage he carries isn't likely to fly (anymore than pigs do):

American Spectator- Politically, Bushes are, like the value of the Ivy League degrees most of them have, vastly overrated. Jeb Bush, who recently, to the surprise of no one, all but announced he would run for president, is no exception.

Ever since Jeb established an “I’m Thinking About Running for President Committee” (translation to English: I’m running for president) a week or so back, the conventional wisdom, whooped up by the chatterati and the various great mentioners, is that this latest Bush is a lock for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. They also say he’s that party’s best hope for reclaiming 1600. He’s probably neither. Read more.

Would Jeb Be Like....?

Politico has an interesting piece speculating about how the Crown Prince's neo-conservatism might further the development of the emergent and illiberal national security state in the USA.  A statist system dependent more on the personality and power of the executive than the traditional constitutional system of checks and balances, and due process. The real question, implied but not directly asked by the article is whether another neoconservative president (another Bush) would essentially overturn the constitutional order, and effectively replace it with an authoritarian regime that is a constitutional republic in name only.  The source for this musing is the recent PR dump by the Bushistas of carefully selected internal emails from JEB!'s Florida governorship.  

What the article is really asking, without daring to do so exoterically, is whether Leo Strauss' reductio ad Hitlerum applies to Obama's continuation of Bush II's national security policies. Do they function as a sort of Bruening-von Papen-von Schleicher Article 48 prelude to a final neocon gleichschaltung of power in the figure of a Bush III neocon man-god, philosopher king? I guess we would find out after the dirty bomb goes off, post 21 January 2017.

With or without such an application of Godwin's Law, the Bushes are nonetheless sending an unambiguous message for anyone informed enough to look closely.  The recent email release, along with the Crown Prince's deliberate, and high profile dubious business activities over the last year portray a legacy scion with an imperial mindset bent on obtaining power willfully, and on his own terms.

Here is the Politico intro:

"An executive branch led by an insular, almost brooding [highly debatable] intellect  … running a tightly controlled, top-down policy machine with an aversion for leaks … and a mistrust—even disdain—for the legislative branch.

The Obama White House? Perhaps—but as fresh scrutiny of tens of thousands of his emails is starting to show, it could just as easily describe one of the current president’s would-be successors, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

In his two terms in Tallahassee, the Republican governor pushed the boundaries of executive power. He unilaterally restructured the state’s affirmative action program through an executive order, rankling the state’s black community. He used his line-item veto pen liberally, axing hundreds of millions of dollars in hometown projects and upsetting even the state’s Republican Senate to the point that it successfully sued him on a technical point." Read more.

Why JEB! Can’t Bypass Conservatives

Daily Caller-Before Jeb Bush announced he was “actively exploring” a presidential bid came news he was just as actively seeking a way to avoid appealing to conservatives. (The Bushies prefer the word “pandering.”)

The would-be King Bush III consulted one of the country’s foremost experts on excelling in the Republican Party without being too conservative: Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“I just said to him, ‘I think if you look back, despite the far right’s complaints, it is the centrist that wins the nomination,’” McCain told Bush, according to The New York Times.

It’s definitely true that the establishment candidate usually wins the Republican presidential nomination. The only two exceptions since World War II are Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

But taking McCain’s advice is easier said than done. Conservatives have been inching closer to taking down the establishment in the GOP presidential primaries. Read more.

JEB! trying to clean up his checkered crony capitalist past in advance of a 2016 run

The Crown Prince is busy resigning from hedge fund, private equity and corporate boards (including ones where he profited from Obamacare) in preparation for the formal launch for JEB! 2016 sometime next year.
Here is the latest:

Resigning from Rayonier board:

USA TODAY- Jeb Bush is cutting ties to a real estate investment trust as he actively explores running for president in 2016.

The former Florida governor notified Rayonier Inc. last week that he’ll resign from the company’s board effective Dec. 31. The information is contained in a Securities and Exchange filing published Monday.

“Mr. Bush stated that there are no disagreements between the company and him related to the company’s operations, policies or practices,” according to the SEC document.

This is at least the third company Bush has severed ties with since announcing Dec. 16 that he will explore a White House bid. He also resigned from the boards of Barclays, the multinational bank, and Tenet Healthcare Corporation, a company that has profited from President Obama’s health care law and touted its economic benefits.

Rayonier, which is based in Jacksonville, Fla., is one of the nation’s largest private landowners. It owns, leases or manages 2.6 million acres of timberland in the United States and New Zealand. Read more.

Polls show JEB! 2016 setting GOP up for presidential disaster

The most recent CNN presidential poll illustrates just exactly how detached from reality the GOP primary voter may prove to be when faced with a presidential election demographic, and a turnout rate closer to 50 percent than 34 percent.

Since formally announcing his exploratory PAC, the Crown Prince has zoomed to the front seat in the circus train carload of likely GOP 2016 candidates, polling at 23 percent, ten points ahead of Krispy Kris Kristie, his nearest rival. Rand Paul polled in a tie with Mike Huckabee for forth place, with six percent. Dr. Ben Carson polled in third place with seven percent support.

The same poll showed the Hildabeast ripping JEB! to shreds, 54 to 41 percent in a general election matchup.  And JEB! does better than any other GOP alternative against Hilldog. This continues the same Bush trend shown in general election presidential polls to date:  the Crown Prince does not poll higher than the low forties.

JEB!'s time warp

Politico-Jeb Bush is trying to show he’s ready to run a modern-day presidential campaign: When he declared last week that he’s “actively” exploring a presidential run, the former Florida governor went straight to Facebook and Twitter instead of the more traditional route of a speech or news release.

But Bush will have a lot more work to do than just showing off his social media proficiency to prove he’s not full of cobwebs. It’s been 12 years since he last ran for anything. And while GOP donors are excited about another Bush making a presidential run surrounded by top-notch staff and all the high-tech gadgets he can buy, it’s another thing to campaign in the real-time Web, where a delayed reaction or a thin-skinned response can quickly dominate a news cycle. Read more.

JEB! Is Dismissing the GOP Base at His Own Peril

NationalJournal.com - Six months after President Obama's 2008 landslide victory swept Democrats into power across the country, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and Eric Cantor sat down at a suburban Washington pizzeria to talk policy. They spent that May weekend arguing that the GOP's best path back into power was to improve the party's battered image by advocating reforms for education, immigration, and the economy. Cantor saw the session as a rebranding exercise, offering mostly platitudes about having a conversation with the American people. Romney used the event as early preparation for his second presidential campaign, mostly sticking to talking points. But Jeb Bush came prepared with a slew of creative proposals to test out at the town hall, like charging lower tuition to students pursuing high-end degrees in engineering and science.

After the event ended, several reporters (myself included) chased after Bush to ask him       the inevitable questions about his interest in running for president. He was visibly annoyed,        lamenting that Washington reporters only ask about the political horse race and have no               interest in policy.  Read more.

JEB!: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Waterboy

TownHall.com - Allow me to unite America's left, right and center in just three words: No, Jeb, No.

Former GOP Florida governor Jeb Bush made the obvious official this week when he announced on Facebook that he's "actively exploring" a 2016 White House run. Of course, he's running. That's what inveterate politicians do.

Well, I hate to break it to Jeb Inc. There's no popular groundswell for Bush Part III. None, zip, nada. Independents, progressives and conservatives are all weary of the entrenched bipartisan dynasties that rule Washington and ruin America. Only in the hallowed bubble of D.C. and New York City elites does a Jeb Bush presidential bid make any sense.

Jeb's indulgent (and ultimately doomed) enterprise has three privileged constituencies: Big Business, Big Government and Big Media. This iron triumvirate explains how the failed campaigns of so-called "pragmatic," "thoughtful" and "moooooderate" liberal Republican candidates such as John McCain, Jon Huntsman and Bob Dole ever got off the ground. The "Reasonable Republican," anointed and enabled by the statist Big Three, serves as a useful tool for bashing conservatives and marginalizing conservatism.  Read more.

For a Media That Worships Power, Bush vs. Clinton Is a Dream Matchup

Huffington Post-It's not official, but a Clinton-Bush matchup in 2016 is looking more likely by the day. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has announced that he's exploring a run, and Hillary Clinton has been meeting with potential campaign managers.

The prospect of becoming president seems increasingly reserved for those who have a husband, brother, or father who has previously held the position. American Democracy is now controlled by political dynasties. Even former first lady Barbara Bush has criticized the notion of only 2 or 3 families running for high office in a country of over 300 million people - a sentiment that 69 percent of Americans agree with.  Read more.

Why Elizabeth Warren won’t run and JEB! won’t win.

Slate Magazine-You could almost call this week the official start of the 2016 presidential race. Yes, the “invisible primary” of jockeying and influence has been going on since the end of the last election. But it’s only been in the last few days that the structure of the field, on both sides, has become clearer. For Democrats, clarity means the picture is still static. Hillary Clinton still towers over every potential competitor, the most popular person in the Democratic Party not named Barack or Michelle. Need proof? In a survey released this week, 50 percent of Americans said they could support Clinton in an election. And in a hypothetical primary—drawn from an average of available polls—almost two-thirds of Democrats support Clinton over everyone else in the field, from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to Vice President Biden. And, contrary to some observers, this isn’t like 2006 or 2007. Then, Clinton was a modest favorite in the field. Now, she’s the undisputed leader.  Read more.

JEB! Already Winning Over Some Supporters of Christie, Rubio

NBCNews.com-Some potential supporters of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are already saying they will instead back the Crown Prince if he runs for president, illustrating the new challenge both men face with JEB! now likely to be a 2016 candidate.  Read more.

JEB!'S Ties to Donors Put Rivals in a Bind

Wall Street Journal-JEB!’s announcement that he will explore a White House bid threatens years of painstaking spadework by other Republicans who have cultivated many of the wealthy donors loyal to the former Florida governor’s family.  Read more

JEB!-Hilldog presidential race could spell doom for our current primary system

U.S. News & World Report (blog)- Despite several past elections and dozens of polls showing that Americans have neither any patience for, nor any interest in supporting political “insiders," Washington's elites seem to be expecting (even hoping for) a 2016 presidential race featuring former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Sen. and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Read more.

JEB! is still being destroyed by Hilldog in national polls

The Crown Prince is still losing to the Hildabeast by landslide proportions in national polls.  What else is new? The latest McClatchy-Marist Poll, conducted December 3rd through December 9th, 2014, has Hillary crushing the Crown Prince, 53 percent to 40 percent.  This poll continues the trend exhibited in all national polls since they began to test this matchup:  JEB! can't ever poll higher than around 40 percent. Hillary consistently polls between 46 to 55 percent.

These numbers suggest this likelihood.  A  JEB! nomination forced by money and delegate selection shenanigans could provoke a fairly high profile third option by a viable independent running to the right of JEB! and targeting nativists and tea party voters.   The result would probably result in Hillary getting around 48 percent, JEB! around 40 percent, and the tea party rogue candidate getting the rest. Absent a third option, the vote would probably break down about 55 percent to 45 percent for Hillary, with the Democratic base fired up by the prospect of preventing a third Bush presidency, and millions of members of the Republican tea party base sitting home.  But bet on a third option this time.

JEB! 2016 NEWS FLASH: The Crown Prince all but formally announces the Restoration effort

His Most Ersatz Christian Highness, The Crown Prince John Ellis Bush, Divinely Ordained by the Plastic Jesus of Neoconservatism to Rule in Mammon's name, has publicly announced he is "actively exploring" trying to buy or steal the White House in 2016, and will launch a PAC tasked with exploring a presidential putsch. This coming immediately after his retainers baited the press that The Crown Prince would also release 250,000 carefully selected laudatory emails from his days as Florida governor, and release an e-book explaining why the country should allow a third Bush to rule.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin, the Royal Family's most loyal apologist in the Establishment media, outside of FOX BNN (Bush News Network) has viscerally denounced Ted Cruz in her Washington Post column, calling him the "next Sarah Palin" in what appears to be a proactive effort to formally marginalize and define him as a nuisance gadfly spoiler.  This strategy is likely part of a plan to goad the tea party favorite into an angry run, where he along with Rand Paul, and perhaps Mike Huckabee would safely divide the anti-Bush primary vote, and JEB!'s early announcement is also timed to show the party's plutocrat money base that he is their man, and put other Establishment hopefuls like "Wall Street Willard" Romney and Krispy Kris Kristie on notice that a run by them is now pointless.

The Clinton's have to be popping champagne corks with James Carville because the Crown Prince has been lured into drawing first blood in a dynastic showdown with Billary, and ignoring the Dowager Queen Bab's earlier warnings about "enough Bushes (and Clintons)." Hillary's rebuttal next spring to a Bush Restoration will now hardly been seen as inherently illegitimate or provocative, especially if polls show her still beating the Crown Prince in a head to head matchup.

A November NBC/WSJ poll found JEB! viewed positively by 26 percent of those surveyed, while 33 percent viewed him negatively.

Additionally, this particular PAC route, when compared to JEB!'s recent questionable off-shore private equity activities, is what one might expect from a Bush.  According to Howard Kurtz over at FOX BNN, JEB! could still change his mind, "...but a veteran politician doesn't pull the media strings the way he did if he's not 95 percent of the way there...[yet] one source close to Bush thinks I'm overreacting, and that this was more in the nature of dropping a hint to keep potential backers from jumping ship." 

One cynic on a media comment board offered what may be the best comment about this PAC move: "...he'll have half a dozen untraceable Super-PACs opened on his behalf, and then when he backs out in a year the money all the suckers donated will disappear into his [off shore] bank accounts."

JEB! 2016: Another Bush family effort at selling conceit and neocon imperium as principled national "service"

I'm coming at you, like a second Katrina, and in short order!

The Crown Prince and his retainers have been baiting the media for months with soft sells about JEB!'s "journey" to a "joyful" run for President.  This past Sunday, the Crown Prince outlined his campaign action plan of fraud with a sickeningly typical script from the Bush legacy playbook of self serving mendacity: "If you run with big ideas and then you're true to those ideas, and get a chance to serve and implement them and do it with passion and conviction,you can move the needle...And that's what we need right now in America."

One thing America does not need is a more "humble" war with Iran.  More "passionate" tax cuts on unearned income.  Untaxed repatriation of outsourced profits to fuel a new speculation bubble. Privatization of education to enrich Bush cronies. $5.00 gas as oil prices hit record highs.

One thing America does not need is a third Bush president.

But it looks increasing like those who don't want that are going to have a battle on their hands to prevent it.  According to Chuck Todd at NBC, "it looks like Republican Jeb Bush is moving closer and closer to presidential bid in 2016."

Todd draws this conclusion after weekend media dumps by the Bush faction that JEB! intends to release 250,000 (carefully selected emails) from his days as governor of Florida, and also release an e-book to show (that he, or some of his retainers are techno-literate and, as he put it himself, to show) why "I think I would be a good president."

Good for whom?  Oil companies, financial speculators, war profiteers, Islamic terrorists, crony capitalists, government contractors, employers of cheap labor, and the undocumented workers (about to become legal guest workers, but not citizens) who come looking for those jobs?

He is also leaking to the media all sorts of details about his private equity offshore business dealings with the Chinese and others, recent and ongoing.   Business dealings that would normally be fatal to a presidential candidate.

But JEB! is no ordinary candidate.  He is sending these conflicting signals to the nation to inform them that he is going to buy the White House for himself, his family, and his financial backers and cronies, and there is little anyone can do to stop him.

JEB! is beginning to make his move.  Locking down the money, and revving up the disinformation machine.

NYT Sunday Review: The Many Faces of Jeb

Ranger Rick sez runnin' for Prezident is not an IQ test

Ranger Rick Perry says there are more important things than IQ when it comes to being President. What else can he say? There will be a circus train car full of challengers to the Crown Prince in 2016. Some, like Krispy Kris Kristy or "Wall Street" Willard Romney could be fighting with him over big donor money. Others like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and perhaps Mike Huckabee will be helping JEB! buy the nomination by splitting up the anti-Bush primary vote. And then there is Rick Perry.

Rick isn't going anywhere, except quietly into a cushy oil company lobbying job after he leaves the Texas state house, but another run for the White House is all about trying to go out as something more than a national joke.  If Governor Goodhair can just avoid, even once, what has now come to be known as a "Perry moment" in national debates, he might convince a few people he has an IQ at least barely in triple digits. That is the closest thing to a win he will ever get in national politics.

O'er the Water to Jebbie!

"Bonnie Prince Jebbie's" metaphorical landing on the Florida beaches and a formal beginning of the Bush Dynasty's Restoration efforts may come within weeks, according to nbc-2.com.

His supporters have been putting out the word among the donor clans of GOP plutocracy to keep their "powder dry," and a formal raising of the Bush standard is all that remains before they rally to his cause.  It will be a long two year slog to their Culloden, and defeat at the hands of "Sweet" William Clinton, and his Clintoverian Queen, the Butcher of Benghazi.

CBS: Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush: Which do millionaires prefer for 2016?

Bloomberg: Clinton Trumps Republican Rivals on Leadership, Vision for 2016

JEB! 2016: All that's left is the announcement

Get Ready Amerika! 

Within the next two months (roughly), the Crown Prince should announce to a resigned nation still reeling from the economic collapse at the end of his brother's reign that he intends, with the help of unearned money and Karl Rove, to "joyfully" try and buy or steal the Presidency in 2016, and Restore the Royal Family to it's rightful place. Even the Dowager Queen Babs is now in favor of a Restoration, according to royal brother Neil Bush (who stands to make millions from Common Core cronyism if JEB! succeeds). because so many people have told her that JEB! is the best qualified option. Yet more proof that the Royal Family lives in a moral and factual bubble of their own creation.  If you want more proof, consider that King George II Walker Bush, while taking a break from his paint-by-numbers kits and Bob Ross instructional DVDs, and exhibiting a madness reminiscent of the King George that sparked the American Revolution, has now announced that JEB! would beat Hillary Clinton in a dynastic showdown.  This, despite the Crown Prince never having placed higher than the low 40s in any national poll to date, and in the latest national poll, by Bloomberg, JEB! comes in at a whopping 37 percent support level.

Does mad King George Dubya know something around 60 percent of Americans don't know?  He knows that JEB!, his financial backers, and Karl Rove will do anything to install another Bush in the White House if called upon to do so, but is the anything and everything they will do enough? Probably not.

BloombergPolitics: GOP Billionaires Plan: We'll Pick the Republican Presidential Candidate

A coming clash of dynasties? (and not the one you think)

The "big tent" circus of the GOP may feature its own dynastic confrontation in the center ring during the 2016 tour, if recent blogo-buzz is any indication.  Back in December 2011, Willard Romney met with King George I Herbert Walker, and the Dowager Queen Babs at the Winter Palace in Houston, and secured their blessing to mount his run in 2012.  The conversation undoubtedly at some point included a polite afterthought suggestion from King George I that if Romney failed to win in 2012, the Crown Prince would deserve an option to exercise "first right" of refusal in 2016.  Willard could not have gotten the ridiculous photo op with the Royal Couple unless he tacitly agreed to such a suggestion. Will Willard, scion of his own pretentious political legacy, now tear up any "gentlemen's agreement" with the Royal Family, and dare challenge the Crown Prince in what might be his best (and certainly his last) chance for glory, should JEB! opt in within the next couple of months?

Recent polls showing him a clear front runner, and embarrassingly ahead of JEB! among Republicans, might tempt him to do it, and risk near certain immolation at the hands of Rove & Co. And some polls suggest if he could defeat the Bush character assassination machine that would be unleashed against him, he might have then made it over the hardest hurdle he would have to jump in order to finally install a Romney on the POTUS throne.  His celestial father George is probably sending his boy a message straight from the Kolob solar system, telling him to risk everything, and go for it.  SETI should be monitoring.

JEB!'s solution to Common Core: bash teacher's unions!

The Bushes have always taken the deflection route in politics. Wimp factor a problem? Show your opponent riding in a tank, and not enjoying it, and then imply he deliberately unleashes dusky rapists on the public. Now comes the latest iteration of a tired old Bush playbook staple. Everyone knows the Crown Prince has a "Common Core" problem with the far right, and he needs gullible far right votes in order to buy the White House for himself and the crony class. Solution? Forget Common Core teabaggers, JEB! will break those godless unions for you!

As pitiful as it might seem to anyone else, this appears to be the route JEB! will take to try and deflect disdain for his educational cronyism.  Instead of god-hating teachers unions sucking down your tax dollars, let god-loving JEB! and his brother Neil, and all his business buddies do it instead. 

While Common Core standards may be a good thing in the right hands, JEB!'s motive with Common Core is profit at parents and children's expense. He does need to break unions, because they are the only organized force standing in his way to an educational kleptocracy. He's already personally invested in privatization of schools, so he stands to profit greatly, as do his friends and business associates. Undercut the system, destabilize it, then give it to private companies and consultants to make millions---and unleash cartel corporatist and cronyism forces on the public school system nationally. JEB!'s version of Common Core will enrich brother Neil's company Ignite! Learning, and other for-profit contractors that support JEB! and his family politically. 

Hillary still destroys JEB! in polls; Ickes drops a bomb

After the so-called GOP midterm wave, the latest New Hampshire poll shows Hillary defeating the Crown Prince by landslide proportions, 47 to 39 percent.  JEB! to date has yet to poll higher than the low 40s in any swing state or national poll.  Rand Paul (49 to 41) polls marginally better that JEB! in the Granite State, and Hillary is tied with Willard Romney (46 to 45) who calls the Lake Region one of his several homes.

It should be no surprise that Harold Ickes recently dumped a press release saying that the Hillary camp was in a panic about the possibility of losing to a JEB!-Rob Portman ticket.  They are in a panic alright, a panic to try and dupe the GOP fat cats into buying the nomination for JEB!, and JEB! into picking Portman, an uninspiring empty-suited neocon corporatist who is very publicly in favor of gay marriage, as his running mate.  The Republican base, already depressed over JEB!'s Common Core and open borders past, would likely go ballistic over Portman.  It would be the surest likely route to a third option for the angry right, and might be the one thing to lure Huckabee into being that option.

In the words of the last Bush Decider in Chief, Bring 'em on!

"Declaration of War" against JEB! 2016 comes today

The Democratic "declaration of war" against the Crown Prince and his '16 "Bonnie Prince Jebbie" Restoration effort begins tonight, then continues tomorrow in the lair of Sheldon Adelson, when Obama travels to Vegas and throws down his Hispanic gauntlet at the feet of the Royal Family and their Party of Bush.  What better place to do it, where lots of "undocumented" workers bus the tables and clean the toilets of the gambling class and neocon plutocrats like Adelson, who will surely be one the principal financial backers of the Crown Prince.

Why me?  Why now?  I need a cigarette...and a drink!

Obama is certainly a master of political theater and gamesmanship, if not exactly governing policy, but the timing of this action is risky. He might be better served to challenge the new Congress to act, give them a few months, and do this next Spring.   The public would likely see that timetable as more reasonable.  The gamble with waiting a bit longer is that Congress might actually pass a comprehensive bill, and deflate the whole political strategy. This seems unlikely for two reasons. The nativist base would insure any bill would have to be passed by violating the "Hastert rule" in the House, and the GOP establishment's strategy on immigration seems to be to hold off (so as not to enrage the nativists) until JEB! can take credit for "solving" the problem with a limited guest worker scheme to benefit business interests in 2017, after the Bushes retake power, and the base no longer matters.

Obama's strategy, whether now or in a few months, is obvious:

Split the Republican Party in half. This will happen regardless of timing.

1. Embolden the nativists to take to "hate radio" and the media, and control the public face of the Republican Party's reaction, including demands for both a government shutdown and impeachment. This will happen regardless of timing, yet doing it now may actually provoke a government shutdown next month.

2. Make it impossible for the Bourbon Toad and the Ohio Bouncer to control their respective caucuses. Debatable.  Mr. Toad is on record stating, categorically, there will be no government shutdown, while the Brown (as in spray tanned) Bouncer has been less categorical in his rhetoric. Even a "partial" shutdown used to mute the worst excesses of the base would likely seriously damage McConnell's credibility.

Shut up, teabagger's, and fall in behind your RINO Prince!

3. Panic the GOP Establishment into doing whatever it takes to force the nomination of JEB! as a counterweight to the nativists, meaning JEB! will have to campaign openly in favor of "open borders" via a "comprehensive" Congressional solution, and against his party's base, in order to mitigate any intergeneration damage with Hispanic voters.  Very likely.

4. Enrage the GOP base into backing a third option when JEB! buys the nomination.  That is the obvious goal of all this gamesmanship, and a slight long shot. Probably the odds of drawing to an inside straight, or inside flush, but better than an inside straight flush.

The real risk for Obama is that the public will view the action as too premature.  Part of the Republican reaction, both establishment and base, will be to try and define Obama as an "imperial" tyrant.  They could have some success with this, at least initially, but probably not enough to prevent most of the negative fallout on the GOP the strategy is designed to provoke during the 2016 campaign.

Obama should wait until Spring.  Congress won't pass anything anyway.  JEB! is definitely going to run, and there is no need to panic the GOP donors into begging him to doing something he and his family are hell bound to do anyway.  Doing it after giving the new Congress a direct challenge to act, and doing so when they fail to act will only drive Hispanic voters further away from the Republican Party.

But Obama's going to drop his Schlieffen Plan now, and start the war.  We should know within a few weeks whether Hillary will spend the next two years getting a makeover in Paris, or stuck in the muddy trenches.

Business Insider: Jeb Bush Is Reportedly Making 'Secret Visits' To Wall Street To Prepare For A 2016 Campaign

Obama readying a "decapitation strike" against JEB! 2016

A. B. Stoddard lobbed a fire bell into the pundit's night with her "All eyes on Jeb Bush" in The Hill, and outlined the greatest problem a JEB! nomination (besides his family's toxic presidential legacy) would pose for the Party of Bush  in 2016:

"...a Bush candidacy would guarantee immigration comes back to the fore in the presidential primary, just as it did in 2012, which is exactly what Republicans don’t want."

If she knows this, then Obama certainly does too, and he is getting ready to slam a sledge hammer into that wedge, and split the dry log of the GOP in two.

Issuing an executive order that will give legal status to millions of Bush era illegal immigrants (he will shrewdly limit it to those who have been in the USA, without criminal trouble, for several years) will both enrage the Republican Party's nativist base, and panic the GOP establishment.

The base will demand Obama's impeachment, and sorely test the ability of Boehner and McConnell to control the tea party constituency in Congress.  Congress will be effectively paralyzed and cannot undue Obama's actions with a legislative alternative that gives the GOP a public relations win. The Republican establishment, as a result, will be ever more determined to nominate an "immigration friendly" candidate to offset congressional inaction,  and the negative image of the base's demand for impeachment, and their high profile media-saturated tirade against "amnesty" for "illegals" that Obama will deliberately unleash.

Boehner and McConnell already hate Obama (and no doubt that hatred is reciprocated), and they will hate him ever more for making their lives a living hell next year.

Obama's actions will put the GOP in an essentially checkmated position for 2016.  Either the establishment forces the nomination of JEB! and alienates their enraged base, or the base gets so riled up they prevent JEB!'s nomination and nominate someone like Ted Cruz.  Either way, a certain massive loss in two years, when turnout will be closer to 50 percent, instead of 36 percent (the lowest mid-term turnout since the 1940s).























JEB! cannot easily campaign both against Obama's order, and in favor of his default position of open borders and a peonage guest worker card.  The Democrats will claim the nativist base is anti-Hispanic and will forever prevent the GOP Congress from passing a legislative solution to the problem, and then claim the GOP establishment does not favor a solution where these immigrants, illegal but yet vigorously lured here by American business interests during both Bush (and yes Clinton) presidencies, have a real chance at full assimilation and citizenship: the GOP elites just want to make them "guest workers."

The strategy is a potentially brilliant political one, even if it is not the correct policy solution.  It will further drive Hispanic voters away from the Republican Party generally, and it will make it nearly impossible for JEB! to make an successful appeal to Hispanics as the establishment nominee.

Hillary will then rout JEB! in 2016 due to two factors:

1. An overall higher voter turnout with proportionally fewer old white people, which puts the increasingly reactionary and divided GOP (able to win in low turnout elections) at an inherent disadvantage.

2. A classic wedge strategy that "suppresses" a crucial amount of the GOP core base any Republican needs to maximize for victory by alienating the nativists from the establishment nominee, whom many will dislike almost as much as Hillary.  If just ten percent of the GOP base either stays home or votes for an opportunistic independent nativist candidate (rather likely in a Hillary-Jeb matchup), it's over. In the alternative scenario, the base nominates a nativist which alienates the political center.

The one real threat to Hillary is the same threat posed to Gore in 2000.  A general election attack from her left flank. It won't come from Nadar this time, but the "iceberg spotters" had better keep a keen eye, and an open wallet, trained on Bernie Sanders.  The Hildabeast is no earth toned Al, and she and her machine will figure out a way to buy Bernie off early.

Wall Street Journal: White House Considers Timing of Executive Action on Immigration

Chicago Tribune: Jeb Bush is the wrong Republican for 2016

It's Official: Mark Levin says JEB! is running

From God's mouth to the Great One's ear, Mark Levin said recently on his radio show that he’s heard on the Q.T. that the Crown Prince is definitely running for president. Hear him say it here.  So will Mark tell his flock after Jeb buys the nomination that it is now time to "fall in line" like good patriotic sheep, and vote for Jeb as the last best hope for America? Bet that fix is already in.

The 2016 election (and who will win it) is in JEB!'s hands now

The Democrats better hope against hope that JEB! runs in 2016.  Since the donor class will certainly prevent someone like Ted Cruz from being the nominee, and thus just handing the election to Hillary, the next best near-sure-fire option for a Democratic presidential victory in 2016 is for the donor class to force the nomination of the Crown Prince.  JEB! has said repeatedly he will announce (or not) by the end of the year.  You can't take any Bush at their word, but the donors will demand an answer by spring, so the nation, and Hillary, should know their fate within about six months.  Hillary will not formally announce her intentions before JEB! does (she is not stupid enough to do that), and ironically she would be LESS likely to run (and more beatable) if JEB! bows out.

This week's Republican midterm victory doesn't really clear up the picture regarding JEB!  On one hand, the victory could embolden neocons, donors, and the Bush family to believe they can put another one over on the country, by hook or crook, and therefore make it more likely Bush will run, however, now that Prince George P. is safely ensconced in his new Texas sinecure and exercising control over oil and gas leases, and ready to hand out Common Core contracts to a feeding frenzy of curriculum profiteers, Bush family cronies, and hucksters, the 2024 Bush "Hispanic Obama" Restoration route looks rather promising.

Ron Paul had the best comment by anyone (politician, pundit, or media whore) about this election: The GOP gains in the Senate and House will embolden the neocons and hawks (in both parties) and make another war in the middle east more likely.

Ron Paul Warns: GOP Senate Control Means Expanded Wars

A GOP wave is coming, then a wipe out.

The party of unbridled reaction is going to win big this Tuesday. Despite the fact there is no actual ebola epidemic in the US, or the likelihood of one. Despite falling leaves and falling gas prices, and despite the fact that the current chaos in Iraq was proximately caused by King George II W Bush and his incompetently executed war there.

Is Obama to blame for the coming Democratic loss? He coddled the bankers, continued Bush's bailout scheme, practices crony capitalism almost as well as a Bush, and for political, or whatever, reasons, he belatedly embraced a fatally flawed strategy to try and reverse Dubya's Middle Eastern disaster.  In 2008 Wall Street bankrolled him (then betrayed him for one of their own predators in 2012), and the Bushes probably even secretly voted for him over McCain. So yeah, he is partly to blame.

Deluded Bush Republican media chatterers like Rove will spin the party's coming midterm triumph as some sort of widespread popular re-embrace of elitist, unearned income-friendly tax policies, and their neoconservative vision for more disastrous preemptive war in the Middle East. Almost no one else will see it that way, including a sizable chunk of the GOP rank and file libertarian, and tea party base. Democrats will say it's the obvious result of a low turnout, old white racist property-owning centered electorate, and that most of the Senate seats lost were in the Confederacy.  That is partly true, especially the latter part.  But the GOP is going to win in a few other places too, and the Democrats are probably not going to do that well with the few younger voters who do bother to show up.

No, the GOP is going to almost run the table tomorrow, and they will pat themselves, and their dolt of a leader, Reince Priebus, on the back for it, and then promptly let the hubris of that unearned victory delude them into making critical mistakes that ensure a rather quick reversal of their political fortune.

First, this is how JEBWATCH predicts tomorrow's political surf-side show:

Montana, West Virginia, and South Dakota are already guaranteed GOP pickups, so on to:

Alaska:  This is Palin Country, and No Country For Young or Old Democrats.  Begich's 2008 election was a fluke, made possible only because even Alaska voters couldn't ignore the over the top corruption of political dinosaur Ted Stevens after he was criminally indicted on multiple counts of ethics violations and pay to play gifting. You can betcha Begich goes down this time, big time, to Palin's former Attorney General.

New Hampshire:  Thank God (or To Whom It May Concern) for New Hampshire.  At least Democrats should.  The independent minded voters of the Granite State won't buy the desperate carpetbagging of relocated former male model and portfolio churner Scott Brown.  There aren't enough retired Taxachusetts expats living lakeside on Winnipesaukee or Squam to make that happen.

Iowa:  If a Democratic woman running for the US Senate ran an ad, and talked about castrating hogs in it, she would be immediately accused by Godly Republicans of really wanting to castrate and tranny out the farm boys tending the hogs, and then turn their sisters into lesbians.  But when a Republican women does it, well, it's just cute.  What Ernst really wants to do is castrate a few Democratic girly men, and that should be an easy and quick slice of work. Ernst in a landslide, not a squealer.

Wisconsin:  Scott Walker's hopes to be the VP for the Crown Prince remain alive (Bush-Walker, now that has a sick ring to it) as he dispatches Mary Burke's birkenstock candidacy.  And crushes a few more commie, atheist-run labor unions along the way.

Colorado: This is one that could go either way, but a lot of Udall's voters are probably enjoying their newfound herbal liberties, and won't make it to the polls.  Will enough Hispanics? Gardner in a close vote if we have to call it.

Arkansas:  Heading down to God's (Own Party's) Country for the first whistle stop.  Even Bill Clinton, campaigning 24/7 in every county in the state, couldn't save his old buddy Mark Pryor. Angry ebola and Obama-panicked Arkansans are gonna be running to the polls in high Cotton.

Louisiana:  One of America's genuine banana republics.  Landrieu's luck runs out, but not before a runoff.  Palin gets rebuffed too, as Bush establishment toadie Cassidy wallops Maness to buy the seat from the Democrat.

North Carolina. This may be the closest loss for Democrats, but a loss it will be.  No Moral Monday is gonna stop the Immoral Tuesday for Kay Hagan.  Expect black folks and spoiled white college students to have to drive across three counties and up a dozen four wheel drive trails to get to their 2016 polling places after Senator Tillis gets through with them.

Georgia: You would think Michelle Nunn might have a shot. Daughter of Sam Nunn, Blue Dog legend.  She has the televised support of crazy old turncoat, Iraq War supporter and W. keynoter Zig Zag Zell Miller.  But then she had to go and make a commercial highlighting her work for King George I HW Bush, and how well pleased he was with it.  Proud outsourcer and vulture crony capitalist David Perdue (who, by the way, has the obvious actual endorsement of King George I HW Bush, the royal benefactor of all outsourcers), the cousin of former Governor Sonny Perdue (but not the chicken Perdues), will go to the Senate and help make sure Georgia keeps the nation's highest unemployment rate.  And Nathan Deal (Real, as in Crook) gets another four years to remain one of the USA's most corrupt, and incompetent, governors. Don't even think about trying to drive I-75 or I-285 around Atlanta if it gets an inch or two of snow again this winter.

Kentucky:  An honorary Confederate state, and one where Queen Mitch, America's most famous bag lady for lobbyists, crony capitalists and plutocrats buys yet another nasty victory, and teaches that perky Clinton girl who didn't vote for Obama not to mess with a real bluegrass Biatch.

Florida: Another one of America's genuine banana republics.  You have a guy, the current Republican, who of course currently owns the governor's mansion, and who was once the head of a company that holds the record for the largest corporate fraud conviction in US history going up against Jeb Bush's handpicked successor, a former Republican and current tanning bed connoisseur. Expect the corporate fraudster, and genuine Republican to beat out the former Republican and fraudulent Democrat.  Floridians are the certain losers, but they deserve to be.

Jesuchristo es mi filosofo favorito

Texas:  A genuine American banana republic that was once an actual one.  There are no genuinely contested races in this one party state, but there is one sad, uncontested one.  The next generation of Bush kleptocrats and legacy wastrels, Prince George P. will buy (or more accurately will have bought for him) the Texas Land Commissionership. With that little purchase the Somoza, er Bush family will then control all oil and gas lease patronage on state lands, and can dole out the state education budget to whichever cronies they choose in pay to play privatization scams.

The Republican Party should wind up with at least eight (nine if you throw in the questionable hippie-cowboy divide in Colorado) Senate pickups, four of which are in the Confederacy (Arkansas, Lousiana, North Carolina), or honorary Confederacy (West Virginia), and four in the "Christian Identity- Posse Comitatus" heartland (Alaska, Montana, Iowa, and South Dakota), but whatever the Party of Bush gains on home turf in 2014, the Bush family's political conceit will take away elsewhere in 2016.  The rest of the country (outside of the Confederacy, and the Corn and Wheat Belts) will rightly recoil from a third Bush presidential run, and flip the Senate right back into Democratic hands (if just barely) in 2016, and put a farm boy castratrix-in-chief in the White House, but even that won't stop the family's fourth try in 2024 running George P. as a "Hispanic" neocon version of Obama.  God help us all.