It's still a blowout loss for Jeb

The latest Washington Post - ABC News poll has Jeb losing in a landslide to Hillary, 53 percent to 41 percent.  This is consistent with numbers and spreads in virtually all major polls this year to date.  Jeb seems to have a ceiling of support nationally at about 41 to 43 percent.  Clinton gets 94 percent of Democrats, a plurality of 47 percent of independents, 59 percent of moderates, even 25 percent of self-described conservatives. Perhaps most important, she gets 59 percent of women, to Bush’s 36 percent.

Very telling for Jeb is his abysmal favorability ratings:  he is viewed favorably by only 21 percent, while 32 percent have an unfavorable view of him.  And his unfavorable numbers are rising (perhaps as Americans seriously ponder the idea of another Bush presidential run).

One thing no poll has yet attempted to capture (and it would be hard to do so) is:

1. The percentage of the GOP base that would stay home if Jeb is the nominee.

2. How much (if any) will a Hillary candidacy spike the turnout of working class white women (who otherwise would not vote at all) in her favor?  Hillary will do better with working class white voters than Obama in Ohio valley states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Bill's home state of Arkansas. Jeb is unlikely to inspire a high turnout of lower class white voters (over religion or any wedge issue) in these states for the GOP, and his "internationalism" will likely turn off the nativists.

There is no doubt Hillary will crush Jeb with single women, and the issue of who will win married women over 40 (who usually vote Republican) is another crucial factor.  It is hard to imagine the prospect of another Bush (and another war) exciting any group of women.

Leave it to a loser to judge the merits of another loser

Tim Pawlenty, whose own much hyped "great sane hope of the GOP" campaign spectacularly flamed out early in the 2012 clown show now says it is his expert opinion that Jeb Bush can win the 2016 GOP nomination.  He says it won't be easy (meaning money will have to counteract voters), but the establishment should take hope.  Just like Romney 2012,  JEB! 2016 is doable. Pawlenty did not comment on Jeb's prospects against Hillary however.

69 percent of Americans say "no" to JEB! 2016

The number 69 has many connotations.  One unsavory one for the Bush royal family is that it represents the percentage of Americans who don't want Jeb to run for President in 2016, according to a new NBC- Wall Street Journal poll.  The CoC,  and the "pheasant under glass," and "war with somebody" sets may yearn for him, but the rest of the country does not.

In the service of full disclosure, the poll results included Hillary as well as Jeb, but the poll did show Hillary far more popular with her likely party base voters than Jeb with his, which could be a decisive factor  in a dreaded dynastic showdown.

Willard may say "yes" again, if Jeb says "no" to JEB! 2016

According to Bob Schieffer, Romney has fed him, through a source, that if Jeb does not run in 2016, he may mount the dog on the roof again in two years (i.e. run).  There is something to be said for trying to be a third time loser (if you count 2008), but the idea is rather preposterous.  No one in America but Romney would want it.   

In December 2011 Romney met with King George I HW Bush and Dowager Queen Babs at the Winter Palace in Houston.  This summit produced some truly hilarious photo ops of a rather pained looking Romney sitting between HW and Babs, both holding lapdogs.  The only things missing were the crowns on the two elder Bushes' heads, and the jester cap on Romney's. What the photos likely could not capture was the conditional "royal blessing" conferred by the old couple on Willard:  2012 is your shot, use it because 2016 is reserved for Jeb if he wants it.

Romney's public feelers about a third run if Jeb skips 2016 amounts to a gauntlet throw down to the royal family to put up, or shut up, which likely damns any Romney effort with the "courtier" donors before such an effort could get started.  Nothing has the fury of a Bush family scorned, so count Romney 2016 out.  Jeb can have all the time he needs to make up his mind.

Cronyism, cronyism...Bush style!

The Week gets it about right with "Jeb has an Obamacare problem."

"Since wrapping up his tenure as Florida governor seven years ago, Jeb Bush has been quietly building a fortune for himself, raking in millions of dollars from consulting gigs, real estate investments, and that staple for out-of-office politicians, speeches."

While the article doesn't touch specifically on Jeb's tenure with Lehman Brothers, his educational and Common Core crony capitalism, and brother Neil's Ignite! Learning, etc., it does throw down one jewel that both those running to the right of him in the primaries, and the Clinton's running against him in the general election, will have a field day with:

"...Bush has also netted more than $2 million from his work as a board member with Tenet Health Care, according to The New York Times' Michael Barbaro. That tie could prove troublesome for Bush if he runs for president in 2016 because Tenet, Barbaro writes, 'aggressively encouraged Americans to sign up for insurance under the [Affordable Care Act] and trumpeted the legislation as a boon to the company’s finances.'"

This has all the hallmark of dour "family values" senator Phil Gramm's investment in an R-rated "T & A" movie production company many years ago, after seeing (and apparently liking) the drive-in classic "Truck Stop Women."

According to media hopefuls, Jeb still "has a shot."

Jeb was a "hot" topic on this past "Face the Nation" as talking head John Dickerson waxed hopeful about Jeb's presence in the 2016 GOP race.  The biggest "laugh out loud" comment was this one: "...there's a competition for the biggest impediments, because he's got a few. I mean, let's focus just the narrow one. I mean, one is he hasn't run a race since 2002. Things have changed a lot in politics."  If anyone thinks that is Jeb's biggest problem, they haven't been paying attention for the last fifteen years. Dickerson seemed to find some sanity as he continued babbling:  "...he would be attacked on both his family legacy, not just about Iraq but about his father's supporting of tax increases, his brother's lack of spending restraint...So there are both issue reasons, family reasons, and also just personal reasons that he would have some hurdles."  And he dealt with the problem of plutocracy and the purchase of the nomination for Jeb in this oblique way:  "...there's also no frontrunner in the Republican party and he also has a name, and so he would have a shot."

Face the Nation: Despite Personal Hurdles, Jeb Bush "Has A Shot"

Guess what? Jeb brings up GOP rear against Clinton, fares worse even than Cruz

In the oak-paneled bubble of plutocracy where each club patron gets his own personal, livery-attired college boy working his way through school to serve the pheasant under glass, Jeb may be the next great hope, but in the rest of the country he is as big a flop as the latest Schwarzengegger movie.  In the recent national McClatchey poll, he comes in, well, dead last against Hillary Clinton among all the potential Republican candidates, losing 55 to 39 percent, a spread of 16 points.  Even Ted Cruz outperforms him, 54 to 39 percent.  Hillary trounces all Republicans, but the establishment's alternative to Jeb, social Darwinist Paul Ryan, does better than the rest of this rat pack, losing only 51 to 43 percent.  So Murdoch's second acceptable choice may wind up both the consensus Fox and GOP choice in the end.

Media grind for Jeb marches on

News 13 Orlando: Jeb Bush receiving support for possible 2016 campaign  "JEB" bumper stickers are showing up all over the state. Supporters hope Governor Bush gets the idea they want him to run. In fact, a group informally known as "Friends of Jeb" hope to talk him into a run. The group is made up of Tallahassee-based alumni from the two terms of Governor Bush spent in office.

Daily Beast: Why Hillary vs. Jeb Would Be Great for America  GOP lobbyist and W. Bush administration vet Mark McKinnon think both represent "middle America."

Dallas Morning News: Jeb Bush’s strong potential to scale ‘Blue Wall’  Maybe in an alternate universe.

Fox News Latino: Spurning Sen. Rubio, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen Says She Would Support Jeb Bush For President

Las Vegas Review-Journal: In Las Vegas, Jeb Bush stumps for better schools  An interesting way to spin a trip to Sin City to court a casino plutocrat's donations.

Guardian: Jeb Bush may want to run for US president, but do US voters really want him to?

Polls say NO! But that may not deter him, and his backers.  According to this Guardian article, Jeb has the appearance of a "plump regional manager of a leading chipboard supplier."  In other words a modern Sinclair Lewis "Babbitt" stereotype.  Don't let that fool you.  He is a ruthless Bush, no matter how innocuous and "compassionate" he may be packaged.

Daily Beast: Why the GOP Should Say No to Jeb

Daily Beast: Can We Divorce Our Elites?

Wall Street Journal: Russian invasion of Ukraine "underway."

Masked and armed Russian speakers with the distinct look of special forces, but no military insignias, took over police stations and other locations in much of Ukraine's east over the weekend. 

The Kiev government is mobilizing its military for what it called a "large-scale antiterrorist operation" in the east. "We won't allow Russia to repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern regions of the country," said acting President Oleksandr Turchynov.

Gun battles in Slovyansk and elsewhere have already produced casualties, and the violence may be exactly what Mr. Putin wants as a pretext to send in larger forces in the name of protecting Russian-speaking minorities. 

"Gleiwitz" events in Ukraine, war imminent, and neocons likely ecstatic

In September 1939, German SS troops, dressed in Polish uniforms attacked a German radio station in German Silesia, killing fellow Germans.  The result was World War II.  While such a dire outcome is less likely this time, Russian "false flag" operations in eastern Ukraine have achieved their desired result.  War is at hand between the nationalist Ukrainian government and Russia.  The neocons must be in heaven on earth as central Europe stand at the gates of hell, and John Bachelor should be fired up in the coming week.

Moscow Times: Ukraine to Launch 'Full-Scale' Offensive Against Armed Separatists

Kyiv Post: Vadym Denysenko: Putin's plan is civil war in Ukraine

Foreign Policy: REPORT Agents Provocateurs and the Shadow War in Eastern Ukraine

International Business Times: Ukrainian Soldiers To Russia: If We Fight A Guerrilla War, We Win

Prague: If Russia crosses Ukraine’s border, it will face economic war with EU

Jeb Bush: "Willing to consider military action in Iran"?

There is likely no way neocon plutocrats like Sheldon Adelson would even give Jeb Bush the time of day if he were, unlike his father and brother, a "dovish" Bush.  There have been two Bush presidents, both of them were "war" presidents, and there is no reason to believe Jeb would be any different.

Reagan, and even Clinton to some extent, understand the proper art of war.  Grenada and Kosovo were clearly defined, well executed operations, and both completely achieved their military objectives without significant endearing negative consequences.   Poppy Bush thought he had that same thing with the Gulf War, but wound up with a messy ending that lured his son into a catastrophic mistake over a decade later.  Now the prospect of a messy adventure in Iran, prodded by the same neocons who wrapped W. around their fingers, should give anyone considering voting for a third Bush "war" president a good reason to reconsider.

Something called the Live Free or Die Alliance: NH's Virtual Town Hall lists Jeb Bush's positions on various issues.  They are what one would expect:  a combination of correct pandering to a reactionary base (that hopefully is far more skeptical of this Bush than they were of his brother), defenses of government subsidized plutocracy, and one very interesting position:  "willing to consider military action in Iran."

Here is the dirty laundry:

• Pro-life [in front of the right crowds at election time]
• Opposes funding for stem cell research [ditto]
• "Skeptic" about global warming [ditto]
• Replaced affirmative action with "One Florida" initiative
• Supports stricter sentencing laws
• Supports school choice
• Supports "Stand Your Ground" law
• Opposes "Obamacare"
• Supports path to citizenship for illegal/undocumented immigrants
• Willing to consider military action in Iran
• Supports privatization and partnerships with faith-based organizations for social welfare programs
• Supports bank bailout but not automobile manufacturer bailout

Jeb gets glowing endorsement on Meet the Press

Establishment media outlet "Meet the Press" is carrying the water for a Jeb candidacy. Roundtable chatterer, and GOP K Streeter, Mike Murphy gushed:

"The wider question is, I was proud of him [for his "love" comment], regardless of if he runs. Because I believe that leadership has been replaced in American politics by marketing. We micro target, micro pander, let's focus group and figure out how to win, you know, this, win that.

And we've lost sight of politicians who tell you what they think is right, they make an argument for it, and then you figure it out. And that's who Jeb Bush is. He's not a typical weather-vane kind of guy. [and Murphy said this without laughing] So if he runs, that's what you're going to get. I think it's what the country's looking for. But we'll see what happens."

If anyone actually believes Jeb Bush is not a world class and calculated panderer for his donor base, they don't have the good sense God gave them, and whatever the country itself is looking for (rather than its elites), it probably isn't Jeb Bush.  Shills on GE and Microsoft media won't be able to sell this sh*t as Shinola.

Jeb and education cronyism

Fitsnews: More Bush? That's what the GOP establishment wants...

New American: Big Biz Launches Pro-Common Core Propaganda Blitz

Scenes from Dr. Zhivago: Get back in your ranks, Tea Party!

Washington Post: Donald Trump mentions Jeb Bush at tea party event, gets boos from the audience  At Saturday's Freedom Summit in Manchester, N.H., Donald Trump talked about Obamacare, foreign policy, immigration and the economy, and he earned cheers and much applause from the audience...When Trump mentioned former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who has been mentioned as a possible moderate Republican presidential candidate, the audience loudly booed and groaned. 

Those folks need to learn some discipline, and how to take orders!

Plutocracy frozen in place: Will Jeb run?

The real question is, do Americans (as opposed to those who merely own America) want him to run?

RealClearPolitics: Will Jeb Bush Run?

Tampa Bay Times: Insiders predict Jeb Bush will run for president in 2016

CBS News: Could Jeb Bush win over the Christian right in 2016?

Washington Post: Jeb Bush to meet with Southern Baptist leader

New York Times: Jeb Bush Talks Approach If He Runs for President  With eyes increasingly on him, Jeb Bush signaled on Sunday the kind of campaign he would mount if he runs for president, one arguing against ideological purity tests while challenging party orthodoxy on issues like immigration and education.

The Hill: Senators warn of Bush fatigue if Jeb runs  Senate Republicans are warning that "Bush fatigue" could weight on GOP chances of capturing the White House in 2016 if Jeb Bush wins the nomination. 

April Fool: “Jeb Bush 2016 Is a Surefire Winner,” Says Local Unicorn

Can you feel the excitement? TheWashington Post reports that all the important Republicans have decided that Jeb Bush is going to be their nominee in 2016.

Jeb speaks Spanish! The GOP Establishment knows that this will totally make Hispanics vote for him, because as they all know from that one time they talked to a Hispanic person, all Hispanics are the same and are totally impressed when an Anglo guy busts out with “¡Hola!”

...Jeb! Isn’t that the kind of name NASCAR people like? Oh, and Jeb totally digs country music artists like Taylor Nelson and Willie Swift. He’s one of them!

Townhall: “Jeb Bush 2016 Is a Surefire Winner,” Says Local Unicorn

JEB! 2016? Nuts!

Is the Republican Party beginning to act like the World War II German commander at Bastogne? Do the Sheldon Adelsons, and their kind, need some straight talking "reality-based" person to tell them the truth about their deluded infatuation with Jeb Bush?  According to the Financial Times article, "A push for Bush in 2016 is dangerous for Republicans," they do.   Christopher Caldwell has it about right when he says, "Donors who believe that nostalgia for the Bush era is widespread are nuts."

The article itself requires a registration/subscription to read, but the pertinent parts lay out the (correct) analysis:

"The strangest advertisements in recent US political history may have been a set of billboards that appeared in early 2010. They showed former president George W Bush goofily waving next to the question: 'Miss me yet?'...it was unclear whether the signs had been paid for by an earnest Bush supporter or a Bush hater with a dark sense of humour...

Lately, though, certain Republican party donors have come to believe there exists a widespread nostalgia for the Bush era. They are urging Jeb Bush, the ex-president’s younger brother and the former governor of Florida, to explore a presidential campaign. They are nuts...

Jeb Bush’s Mexican wife, his record of promoting Hispanics and his one-time tally of 61 per cent of the Latino vote have all piqued the interest of Republican strategists. But he cannot replicate these numbers nationally. An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken in March found 48 per cent of voters would “definitely not vote for him” under any circumstances. There is no reason to believe they are playing coy. Mr Bush would need to get 96 per cent of the undecided vote to win...

It is not merely antipathy among Democrats that accounts for Mr Bush’s shaky polling numbers. His party is split, perhaps fatally, between its wealthy donors and its déclassé voters. So big is the role of fundraising in national politics that few politicians spend enough time with non-millionaires to realise how distant from voters they have become. 

This is a danger sign for Republicans.  The plutocratic wing chose the party's presidential nominee in 2012 and demoralized everybody. In recent weeks, Mr Bush has made contact with Romney donors. He has auditioned at an unseemly Las Vegas dinner hosted by the gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, who poured $93m into the last election...

Democrats won the last two presidential elections by nominating someone who inspires their party base, and then battling it out for uncommitted voters. The Republican party is following a different strategy. It is courting money men and trusting that the red-hot rank-and-file members will fall into line, having no place else to go. But they will not...

...Mr Bush is being promoted by Republicans whose main interest in the party is that it not nominate someone who will shake up the Obama-era economic settlement. The strategy seems bound to produce an electoral loss. That appears to be of little concern to the people devising it."

The Republicans of today seem to have forgotten one of the most important political analects of their first president, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

The Bush family, Karl Rove, and others like them had better realize that their days of successful velvet gloved demagoguery based on fear mongering their "declasse" voters to act against their own rational self interest are over.   The image of Rove's incoherent blathering about Ohio on Fox election night in 2012, clearly delusional, and evoking Hitler in the bunker moving imaginary armies around on the war planning table, sums up the current dilemma of the Republican Party.  It may take a catastrophic loss in 2016 led by these people to inject some reality back into that party's viability on the national level.

Not everyone (even in the family) is on board with JEB! 2016 (yet)

Jenna Bush Hager, one of W's daughters, was asked recently if she would like to see another Bush in the White House.  Her response:  "Not anytime soon."

Like her grandmother, she knows what's best for her country.

US News and World Report: Jenna Bush Hager Just Not Ready for Jeb Bush 2016

New Jersey Star-Ledger: President 2016: When Bush comes to shove, it won't be Jeb

Murdoch leaks Establishment plan to crush tea party, and put up Jeb or Ryan

Roger Ailes may run Fox News as the official propaganda organ of the neoconservatives who run the Republican Party, but Rupert Murdoch owns it.  And when Murdoch publicly states that Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan are on the top of his list for the 2016 presidential election, but that he could vote for Hillary Clinton, depending on the Republican candidate, you know what's going to happen between now and November 2016:

1.  Christie is already considered too much "damaged goods," and has lost the support of the monied class.

2.  The GOP establishment (plutocrat donor base) will do whatever it takes to buy the nomination for either Jeb Bush (if they can convince him to accept it), or in the alternative, compliant stooge Paul Ryan.  Even if neither Jeb nor Ryan can beat Hillary (not likely at this point) they will offer an alternative to her acceptable to the ownership and speculator class.  And, of course,  Hillary is acceptable to the ownership and speculator class if they can't elect either Jeb or Ryan.

3.  Unspoken, but consider anti-union hero Scott Walker (if he can get reelected in Wisconsin) a "dark horse," or a prime VP choice, at least for Jeb.

4.  In no uncertain terms, if Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, or Ted Cruz managed to put one over on their "betters," and steal the nomination, the neoconservative leaders of the Republican Party will do whatever it takes to see they lose the general election.  Expect another 1964.

Politico: Murdoch says Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan top 2016 list, but he could vote for Hillary

Chattering class in a bubble over Jeb?

According to RealClearPolitics' The Chattering Class Won't Be Enough for Jeb:

"...it would be a mistake to vote for this Bush, because like Mitt Romney, he cannot win a general election.

Period. Both guys look great on paper, but when voters look at either former governor, they can't get past the perception that they are gazing at a son of privilege and a creature of the establishment. Worse, both former governors think they're underdogs, not sons of privilege and creatures of the establishment.

Then there's his Hamlet shtick: To run or not to run? Bush told Fox News' Shannon Bream that he's not sure he wants to run unless he can do so "with a hopeful, optimistic message" and without watching his rhetoric get sucked into "the vortex of the mud fight." (That's another plus. He uses words such as "vortex.")

Bush also said he wants to campaign "joyfully" and free of the "convention of the politics of the here and now." Here's the headline: Bush not sure GOP is good enough for him.

This bothers me: Bush says he has qualms about slumming it in the muddy GOP primary, yet somehow the Sunshine Stater didn't think it would dirty his hands to fly to Las Vegas to kiss the ring of Sheldon Adelson, the GOP mega-donor whose millions kept Gingrich in the endless 2012 primary...

Methinks they're trying to make up for the sick twist of fate in 1994 that robbed Jeb of victory in his first gubernatorial bid when his less serious politician brother George won Texas. With that edge, the cockier Bush won the Oval Office in 2000. For the chattering class locked in its own way-back machine, Jeb will always be the Bush who got away." 

The Republican Party's real problem is that the "chattering class" (and the Adelsons of the world) may be sufficient to buy Jeb the nomination rather cleanly over the Tea Party and Paulite "dwarves," and keep him from getting his own hands very dirty.  The Bushes have always preferred to have others do their dirty work for them, and Jeb will be no exceptions.  He won't run unless the donors can guarantee him he won't get any mud on his own velvet gloves of entitlement.

Los Angeles Times: Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton play their own Games of Thrones

Newsmax: Republican Donors Worry About '7 Dwarfs' Problem as Jeb Bush Mulls 2016

Jeb! 2016: No way out?

Not according to Damon Linker at The Week who proclaims: Republicans are realizing that Jeb Bush is their only option in 2016.  He is speaking of those Republicans that matter, of course. Even neocon godfather Bill Kristol has given Jeb his inverse seal of approval by slyly stating that there is "no way" Jeb will face Hillary in 2016, and he even offered to buy Joe Scarborough and his TV crew dinner in New York (which he concedes is expensive) if Jeb is the nominee.  Kristol would gladly buy every employee at MSNBC dinner and drinks at the Four Seasons if that would guarantee Jeb the White House.  England's Daily Mail is onboard with a checklist of indicators to show that Jeb is going about making plans for a run.  The US News and World Report hails Jeb as "the new compassionate conservative."

There is one clear indicator that Jeb is indeed seriously mulling a run:  he is planning to meet privately with Russell Moore, head of the public policy organization of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Want to know why Jeb will never be president (but might be the GOP nominee)?

Read this article in the US News and World Report, and read Ed Kilgore's article in Washington Monthly.  This tidbit from the former is priceless:

"In fact, a Jeb Bush presidential run would become the ultimate embodiment of the tea party versus establishment civil war currently being fought out on the right (under the present auspices, let’s remember, of Bush-verse uber operative Karl Rove).

In other words, the admonition I saw on Facebook a few weeks back has as much currency with the hard right as it does with the left: Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, vote for Jeb Bush and you’re just an idiot."

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, vote for Jeb Bush, and you're just an idiot. That has the tenor of a campaign slogan!

Jeb the dishonest C of C "guest worker" apologist flashes his world class false compassion

You knew it was coming.  That specific moment when another Bush fraud would play the phony compassion card.  And you knew Jeb would do it over "immigration.'

That moment arrived today, which, if Jeb does run, might should be considered the first official day of his still unofficial 2016 campaign.

Bush politicians have a nasty history of Orwell-level obfuscation, and world class detachment from the worst types of political dirty trickery conducted by surrogates while they practice the most odiously dishonest moralizing.  Poppy did it in 1988 with Atwater running the bludgeon show while he whined about "a thousand points of light" and a "kinder gentler nation."  W. boasted of "compassionate conservatism" while nebulous donor allies trashed John McCain about imaginary "illegitimate" black children, and W. later told America Jesus was his favorite philosopher, and that he wanted a "humble foreign policy" as a lead up to a long planned war of choice with Iraq.

Now comes Jeb, the champion of the immigrant.  Jeb of course is, in no way, a champion of the actual immigrant, but very much a champion of the historic method and system of exploiting those whom he today claims sneak into the US as an "act of love" to help their families, and should not be considered criminals for doing so.

Jeb is right about one thing.  Those people who come to the US illegally under a system that lures them here should not be considered criminals.  Who are the real criminals?  Jeb and his enablers of course are the real criminals.

For this Bush, whose party and political family has spent a generation working in the service of American businesses to provide a method and mechanism for people to enter the US at will and work without legal protection now wants to claim he is a decent person for doing this.  Decent because he cares about the worker.

Only a fool would believe it.  Jeb, like his father and his brother before him, pursued an open borders policy solely because their commercial benefactors wanted one in order to exploit cheap labor, and now Jeb thinks he can buy respectability and political salvation (and some hispanic votes) by calling for "immigration reform" which for him and other Republicans would amount, when it is said and done, to nothing more than limited amnesty for those who have already been exploited (fair enough if done correctly and for the right reasons, which Bush is not doing), and a future "guest worker" peonage system to "legalize" exploitation.

In the end, most Hispanics won't be as gullible as the Bible Thumpers who bought W's false moralizing.  Jeb will not be successful playing the immigration card.  Not as part of a White House winning hand.

Wa. Post: Can Jeb Bush change the conversation on immigration in the 2016 GOP presidential primary?

Immigration reform 'love': Did Jeb Bush comment change shape of 2016 race?

The Russians did it after all

The US government (meaning the not to be trusted Obama-led US government) claims to have what it calls "strong evidence" that paid Russian agents and provocateurs are behind the proclamation of a separatist "republic" in eastern Ukraine, which if true would be clear evidence of an imminent Russian regular forces move into the country for more land grabbing.  The only really unanswered question is how far will Russia take it (meaning how much more of Ukraine does Russia want to annex), and whether it will lead to a general war with the rest of Ukraine, that could potentially turn into a nasty partisan, and terrorist war against Russia proper by Ukrainian nationalists, and could it spill over into other areas of Europe?  All minor points of course.

The neocons at home in the US sense their opening, and they will take it.

VOA: Russia May Have Instigated Separatist Protests in Ukraine

Globe and Mail: Pro-Russia activists proclaim separatist republic in Ukraine

Russian provocateurs in Eastern Ukraine presage invasion?

Pro-Russian "demonstrators" in two eastern Ukrainian provincial cities have stormed and occupied government buildings and raised the Russian flag, perhaps heralding a "visit" by Russian military forces to "protect" Russians in these areas.  Many neocons are perhaps rejoicing at this concrete evidence of a possible further and imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, hoping for a re-ignition of the Cold War, and many American right wingers actually admire Putin as a model leader for the U.S. as well. Perhaps, the neocon logic goes, a new Cold War will frighten Americans back into a militaristic mode, and the American version of Putin will arise to lead them.  Somehow, even if such were to happen, don't look for him to be named Bush.

The "Lehman" albatross

While Jeb will face certain attack from the right over Common Core and guest workers should he exercise his option on the GOP nomination in 2016, one huge line of attack against him, likely coming both from his GOP opponents (much like the "vulture capitalist" attack against Mitt Romney in 2012) and from the Democrats will be Jeb's longstanding involvement with crony capitalism, both with respect to education reform, and in one area the public knows very little about yet: his dubious involvement with doomed Lehman Brothers and the financial collapse of '08.  The Nation is firing off one of the first "Lehman" shots in a recent piece, Why Jeb Bush Isn’t Actually a Safe GOP Choice for 2016.

Battle lines with Tea Party over Jeb are drawn, exposing neocon establishment's motive

According to neoconservative blogger Ron Radosh, the tea party has begun to enunciate a consistent Voelkisch attack line against the royalist Jeb boomlet, and it goes something like this:

"...the Republican base find his position on immigration untenable, and would fight him tooth and nail during primary season. He is also a serious advocate of education reform. His support of Common Core, however, will also find many who are in the conservative ranks objecting, since they fear that Common Core represents educational centralism and having the government ram federal standards down their throats.

...Bush is already being heralded as the obvious candidate, the man to whom the big money must and will flow. As the Washington Post reports:

'Many of the Republican Party’s most powerful insiders and financiers have begun a behind-the-scenes campaign to draft former Florida governor Jeb Bush into the 2016 presidential race, courting him and his intimates and starting talks on fundraising strategy.'

Apparently, whoever makes up this somewhat mysterious Republican “establishment” fears that their former hope, Gov. Chris Christie, is damaged goods. Secondly, they fear that unless they intervene quickly behind a chosen candidate, Sen. Rand Paul could win the nomination and, in a time of the necessity of strong actions abroad by the United States, could push their party and the country in an isolationist direction.  As one prominent unnamed bundler told the reporters about Jeb Bush, “he’s the most desired candidate out there.” The article goes on to note that at a moment’s notice, Bush could activate a waiting national fundraising effort that would give him more funds than any competitor in the Republican ranks."

This analysis is more important for what it reveals about the "establishment" and neocons than about the tea party base, and it explains why the neoconservative GOP establishment would force a "safe" nominee (for their interests) like Jeb Bush, who cannot win a general election, in the absence of a "safe" nominee (Christie) who at first appeared able to win (or at least compete) in a national election.  Their bottom line is better to lose with Bush than have someone like Paul (who arguably could outperform a third Bush in a general election, even in a losing effort) take their party away from them. The dirty little secret is that, for most neocons, Hillary would be preferable to someone like Rand Paul, whose movement, inherited from his father, questions the very moral authority of the national security state, and US imperial motives.

W. may have finally found his "calling"

He bankrupted every business his daddy and friends set him up in until becoming a PR man for a baseball team.  As a politician he was a textbook example of the Peter Principle in action. George W. Bush, who may have missed an earlier calling as baseball commissioner, now may have found his reason for being on this earth:  as a postmodern painter of animal and human portraits.  The reviews are, well, not bad:

The artist known as 'W': Paintings unveil George W. Bush's softer side

Bush paints, but is he any good?

November 6, 1994: chaos theory hinge, or cosmic judgment?

A post in the UK Spectator blog raises this Butterfly Effect question:

"Connoisseurs of hinge-moments – those instants at which a country’s future changes – have long-appreciated the 1994 Florida gubernatorial election. Jeb Bush lost. Meanwhile, across the country, his elder brother George was elected governor of Texas. George Junior complained – whined, perhaps – that Barbara and George Senior grieved Jeb’s loss more than they celebrated George’s victory.  Until that moment, however, Jeb had been thought the Bush boy more likely to succeed on the national stage. Over the course of a single night in 1994, however, the wheel turned back to George. We know what happened next....Twenty years later there are people still determined to give Jeb a chance. According to the Washington Post “influential Republicans” are working to drag and draft Jeb into the race for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination

....“Influential Republicans” means, of course, immensely wealthy Republicans....'He would be outstanding” says Henry Kissinger. “He is someone who is experienced, moderate and thoughtful.'...Hillary might be hard to beat anyway but even a numbskull could craft an effective advert asking Americans if they felt like electing the third President Bush or the first female President....Stranger things have happened but it’s hard to think of many stranger than returning to the Bush well for a third time. Welcome to America, a land where just about anyone can become President. Hell, we elected Dubya didn’t we?"

November 6, 1994, and Lawton Child's squeaker win guaranteed the country would be subjected to a Bush Restoration neoconservative movement centered around the "stupid" legacy wastrel over the "smart"one.  And now the "smart" one should have his chance to restore lustre to the still tarnished family legacy, and give the neocons their capstone war with Iran?

The title of this article contains the cosmic answer to that question:  God help us all.

The necessary neocon destruction of Rand Paul has begun

Jennifer Rubin has fired the first shot in the Washington Post:
Rand Paul trashed military option for Iran and blamed the U.S. for WWII

The Federalist offered a counter shot:  Jennifer Rubin’s Amazingly Dishonest Rand Paul Hit Piece

The drumbeat goes on...

Establishment shill George Will says, The GOP faithful should give Jeb Bush a hearing

BloombergView:  Jeb Bush Rising

Why Jeb Bush Will Win the 2016 GOP Nomination

That's the title of a recent blog post on the Huffington Post.  The "why" is explained this way:

"He's got class, pedigree, political juice and a Mexican-born wife...assets the Republican Party desperately needs. He's an oasis of respectability and sanity in a sea of fringe madness. He's appealingly establishment and old-school against a backdrop of Tea Party Turks run amok. He's Steady-Eddie. Conservative enough to appeal to the masses, but not too conservative to attract independents."

Words like these beg a multitude of reactions.  No doubt Jeb Bush can be the Republican nominee if he wants to be.  The party leadership and the donor base will deliver the nomination to him, over any objections primary voters might have.  Yet when reading this rationale for his candidacy, one has to wonder if the right wing (neoconservative) Establishment in this country has become as detached from reality as the perfumed Versailles aristocracy of the French ancien regime circa 1788.

Quite frankly Jeb would be destroyed in a general election, certainly by Bill and Hillary Clinton, but most likely by any Democrat who manages to get that party's nomination.  At least ten percent of the hard right base would stay home, just as they did for Mitt Romney.  Independents, who have no ideological view of reality that can be manipulated by neocon wedge baiters using tired, outdated strategies and tactics will simply not accept a third Bush president within a mere quarter century (coming after what the first two offered the country).  In fact, they will consider the very idea laughable. Jeb can "win" the 2016 GOP nomination, but nothing else.

Neocons may get a European war

According to Reuters, Russia has mobilized a large enough force along Ukraine's borders for an invasion of the country "within 3-5 days."  If Putin wants to invade, now would be the time to do it before the rump nationalist government in Kiev has a further chance to develop a national guard and deploy it to the eastern areas.   If the tanks roll, the question is where do they stop? Somewhere in eastern Ukraine, or do they roll onward towards the Polish border, and force a general war of conquest and partisan resistance with all of Ukraine?  If Putin wants it all, now is the time to try for it, and humiliate "Lurch" and Obama.     Stay tuned to John Batchelor for melodrama and analysis in the coming days.

Plutocracy Unbound!

Who better than the Wall Street Journal for details about today's Supreme Court decision enhancing its line of "government for sale" cases, beginning with Buckley v. Valeo, continuing through Citizen's United and now "McCutcheon," which invalidates aggregate campaign contribution limits. The days of Bebe Rebozo, and transparent bagmen, are not far away from our future, as the Sheldon Adelsons, Kochs, and Soroses are undoubtedly celebrating this victory (along with their patrician stooges like Jeb).

The Roman Pretorian Guard formally auctioned the Principate to the highest bidder after assassinating Commodus, and his short lived successor Pertinax in AD 193.  America is arriving at its own logical imperial destiny, thanks to corrupted legal systems and courts.

Would Jeb nomination be "suicidal" for the GOP?

While the Republican Party stands to make gains, perhaps even seemingly major ones, in the upcoming midterm elections, the short term bump they receive because of Obamacare may only temporarily paper over the long terms problems facing the party.

A recent article in Slate posits that a Jeb Bush presidential run in 2016 would be "hard" for the Republican Party, exposing in the worst way, its existing fault lines and interest group contradictions. Saying it would be "hard" might be an understatement in hindsight.  Bush's family heritage, coming off of two recent arguably failed Bush presidents (at least with the second) obviously would be a problem, according to the article, but the second reason is the kicker:

"The second problem for Bush is the people backing the draft movement. He isn’t being called from the counter in coffee shops or Tuesday Tips club meetings. The support is coming from what one GOP veteran referred to as “the donor class.”  This group is also variously referred to as the establishment, Country Club Republicans, and the moderate wing of the party. These Republicans are tired of being defined by the ... Tea Party wing of the party. Meanwhile, movement conservatives are sick of elites using their money to arrange things without the interference of pesky voters."

The real problem the plutocrat donor base faces if it forces Jeb upon the party's voting base in 2016 is a potential irreversible destruction of the wedge issue electoral coalition of disparate reactionary and libertarian interest groups that has served the donor class very well over the last thirty plus years.  Jeb will not run as a phony cultural reactionary like his older brother did, and his calculated appeal to "moderates, modernists, and Hispanics" will enrage the white nativist base of the GOP, and also his neoconservative support, and crony capitalist baggage will alienate the libertarians.  Would it be a perfect storm for the Republican Party, given Jeb's likely weak appeal to independents in a general election hostile to a third Bush "entitlement" presidency within the last quarter century?   The Clintons' campaign slogan may need be only:  "A Clinton Second Act, or a Third Bush Try?  You Choose."

Fox: Bush royalists "keeping powder dry"

According the GOP party PR media outlet FoxNews, Bush political loyalists, including a network of high ranking staffers from previous Bush campaigns and major money bags donors, are holding steady and coalescing around the prospect of a Jeb! 2016 run for the purple.

Jeb himself, coming off his recent private summit with potential benefactor Sheldon Adelson, has avoided the fray with a certain amount of royal detachment, which he and his family probably view as the proper level of tactful patrician reserve, saying only he will make a decision later this year (presumably after the midterms, and the all but certain selection of son George P. as Texas Land Commissioner). Meanwhile, according to Justin Sayfie, Jeb Bush's former communications director and speech writer, the shadow campaign organization, and its personnel are "keeping our powder dry."