BYE BYE MISTER NEOCON BUSH - THE DAY THE DYNASTY DIED !!!!

The Crown Prince John Ellis Bush Pulls the Plug on JEB! 2016, and Abdicates His Entitlement In Favor of Prince George ("Jorge") Prescott Bush.

JEB! Bush is the name, and he "served" in the Bush Restoration game, 'till Donald's sideshow came and tore up the scam again.  In the winter of '16, Bush was hungry for a win, his hope barely alive. By February the 20th South Carolina had fell, it's a time we all will remember....OH SO WELL....

The day they drove old JEBBIE! down, and bells were ringing
The day they drove old JEBBIE! down, and the people were singin' they went
YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YEA! YAHOOOOO!

To mix musical metaphors.

The Crown Prince John Ellis Bush abdicated his entitlement to the Bush Restoration immediately after being humiliated in the South Carolina primary, where he finished forth and in single digits behind Marco Rubio.  JEB! did not wait even a day to call it quits, but rather did it the evening of the primary, announcing his departure to a small group of supporters while holding back tears .

"Jesuchristo es mi filosofo favorito"

Meet the new Bush Crown Prince,

George Prescott Bush

The ill timed and ill conceived run of JEB! which began with a massive effort by the donor class to bankroll him to a prohibitive purchase of the nomination was derailed by the postmodern candidacy of Donald Trump, whose ongoing lounge act roast of the Bush Crown Prince all but made him a laughing stock, and undercut his carefully prepared big money operation, which had all the adaptive ability of a Soviet Five Year Plan.

Whether of not JEB!'s candidacy would have been as stillborn had not Trump aborted it is debatable. Given JEB!'s toxic family legacy, he likely would not have been able to secure the nomination. His real problem was Marco Rubio's decision to enter the race, which provided an alternative for his likely voting base.  Had Rubio not run, JEB! probably could have gotten a fairly consistent 20-30 percent in a fractured race, and perhaps even more, and might have been successful at a convention brokered to help him.

The fate of any future Bush Restoration will lie with JEB!'s eldest son, Prince George Prescott Bush, who now inherites the title of Crown Prince.  The new Crown Prince successfully purchased the Texas Land Commissionership in 2014, and controls the award of public oil and gas leases in Texas and the state education budget (and the awarding of crony for profit curriculum contracts).

Crown Prince P.'s route to a 2024 Republican nomination will follow a different path from his father's doomed 2016 effort.  P. has already positioned himself as a "movement" conservative in line with the tea party, while also discreetly continuing the Bush family tradition of cronyism. P.'s route will most likely run through the Senate, given Greg Abbot's likely lock on the Texas state house for the foreseeable future.  P. could either challenge Ted Cruz in 2018, and try to knock him off, or wait until 2020 and try to force three term incumbent John Cornyn to retire and take his seat.

The end to JEB! 2016 could come as early as Sunday, but probably at least by Monday

JEB! is going to do very poorly tomorrow in SC.  Most certainly he will finish well behind Marco Rubio, and there is a chance he might even finish behind John Kasich.  Everyone, voters and donors, have given up on JEB! and it appears even JEB! now realizes it.

W's public appearance this week served as an ironic eulogy for JEB! 2016 from the man whose presidency strangled his brother's presidential aspirations in the cradle. JEB's presidential run was doomed from the start.  He didn't raise too little money.  He could have raised 150 billion dollors instead of 150 million, but it would not have helped him buy one single vote from anyone not already sold on the idea of a third Bush president.

America will not be ready for a third Bush president for many years, if ever.  George P. Bush may try again for the family in eight years, but don't count on him having much better luck than his father. One of W's daughter might get the idea if P. flames out that a female Bush could run as a "liberal" Democratic and restore the family to national prominence. Don't bet on it.

But one thing the younger Bush women do have going for them. They are much better looking than the Bush men. If you are going to get screwed by a Bush, either of W's daughters would be preferable over any other family member.

Kid Marco is the new golden boy of neoconservatism, and you can expect him to do very well tomorrow in SC

Trump is slipping in the polls in SC. Two recent polls have him under 30 percent.  Whether or not he wins, you can expect him and Cruz and Rubio to be bunched up pretty close together tomorrow. While it is unlikely Rubio will outright win SC (if he does the race is over), you can expect him to be, at worst, a close third, or even perhaps second.

The implosion of JEB! should not give anyone the idea that the donor class no longer controls the GOP.  They control it as closely as they always have, but you just can't sell sh*t as shinola, and the Bush scam won't work anymore, no matter how much money is thrown trying to sell it.

The Rubio scam will work, to perhaps devastating effect. The plutos know it, and they are definitely with that program now.

Shocking News: Oil industry bet big on Jeb Bush for president, Reuters review shows. Now what? (On to JEB! lite)

Pass the collection plate to the next generation!

(Reuters) - U.S. oil and gas executives bet big on 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush - they donated more to his White House run than to all of his rivals combined, according to a Reuters review of campaign disclosures.

But that was last year.

Now Bush faces what party strategists and donors view as a make or break moment on Saturday in South Carolina's Republican primary, or early nominating contest. Polls show him trailing in the single digits. If he fails to do well, there will be pressure on him to quit, strategists say, and the oil money will be looking for a new home.

The main beneficiaries in the Republican race would likely be Ted Cruz, a U.S. Senator from Texas, and Marco Rubio, a U.S. Senator from Florida. After Bush, the two candidates received the most contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to the Reuters review.

When Bush entered the White House race last year, the petroleum sector saw him as their natural choice: he was the son and brother of former presidents and he came from a West Texas family with historically close ties to the oil industry.

"Bush is part of a family that is a friendly face to the oil industry," said Sarah Emerson, director of Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Boston.

He drew more than $2 million from the chief executive officers of companies like Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), Halliburton (HAL.N), Kinder Morgan (KMI.N), and Chief Oil & Gas in 2015, making up about 56 percent of all the industry’s contributions to the race so far, according to the review.

The review covered contributions from 75 oil and gas companies, their employees, and their political action committees to presidential candidates' campaigns and allied Super PACs. When counting donations only to Republican candidates’ campaigns, employees favored Cruz among the Republicans, with Bush in second place and Rubio in third. Read more.

Indications of an inglorious end to JEB! 2016 next week: Pro-Jeb Super PAC cancels $3 million in Super Tuesday ads

Speed, bonnie dollars, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the donors cry;
Many's the Royalist fought on that day
When the night came, silently they lay
Dead on Carolina's field.
Carry the lad that was born to be King
Over the bay to Walker's Point.
Sing me a song of a dynasty that is gone,
Over the bay from Kennebunkport!

(wnd.com) - Right to [Rule], the “super PAC” supporting Jeb Bush that has dominated the ad-spending battle so far, has canceled up to a third of its ad reservations in March 1 primary states, according to media buying sources.

By early January, the group had reservations for about $10 million in the Super Tuesday states of Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma and Georgia, having booked them far in advance to ensure lower rates.

The cancellation has not, at this point, been accompanied by increased advertising in South Carolina, whose Republican primary voters cast their ballots on Saturday. Mr. Bush is depending on a strong showing there to capitalize on a his fourth-place finish in New Hampshire, which his campaign said had “reset the race.”

Read more.

Slipping on a Freudian Banana Peel: JEB! Makes Awkward Mistake at Campaign Stop, Tells Crowd He Should Drop Out

(Social News Daily) - Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush made an awkward gaffe on Wednesday when he joked about pulling out of the race. The comments came during a speech at a campaign stop, where the former Governor of Florida told his enthusiastic supporters something less than enthusiastic, stating: “It’s all decided, I mean we don’t have to go vote I guess, it’s all finished. I should stop campaigning maybe, huh? Let’s just—it’s all done!”

A video clip of the incident, which has already aired on MSNBC and other outlets, shows the governor pacing the stage and looking exhausted and frustrated while he spoke.

Yikes. This is bad news for Bush, who’s well-funded campaign has been struggling to gain traction. He’s currently polling at about 4 percent nationally.

At least Bush seemed to have caught himself, adding “That’s not how democracy works, right?” Even with the quick save, the audience can gasped and booed at the mention of leaving the race.

The gaffe will hardly be remembered as the moment that brought down the Jeb Bush campaign. Once expected to be the Republican favorite in the race, a tumultuous election season populated by political outsiders and fueled by widespread resentment toward the political establishment makes Bush look like a relic from a bygone era. Read more.

Will Jeb Bush Drop Out After South Carolina? We Might Just Have Seen His Last Hurrah

(bustle.com) - Former Florida governor Jeb Bush has doled out over $100 million on his presidential campaign — but according to the polls, it hasn't been paying off. The Republican candidate has raised more money and spent more of it than any other GOP candidate in the race. However, the financial support hasn't been matched by voters and these upcoming elections may be the last straw. If he doesn't win big in the Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary, Bush might choose to drop out of the presidential race.

One of the most telltale signs of the candidate's potential withdrawal is his recruitment of his older brother and former two-term president George W. Bush, who joined him on the campaign trail in South Carolina. Though the move initially came across as a confident rally call, it may represent Bush's last "hurrah" and his final attempt at garnering some much needed support. Before dropping out, candidates want to ensure that they are remembered for their valiant efforts. They want to exit the stage with a bow and go out with a bang. But, leading up to the primary, Bush is going to face some personal advantages and disadvantages in the "first in the south" state that will undeniably help determine whether or not he can pull through.

Nationally, according to RealClearPolitics, Bush is polling in last place at just four and a half percent support. Among South Carolina voters, he fares slightly better, coming in fourth place at 10 percent support. The polls suggest that his closest competitors in the state are Rubio, who has 16.8 percent support and Kasich, who polls a fraction of a point beneath Bush. Though the candidate is polling low, South Carolina certainly isn't hopeless. Read more.

Rubio (JEB! lite) surges as the anti-Trump, anti-Cruz favorite

(thestate.com) - The Republican presidential hopefuls have two days to win support from S.C. voters – and a big question to answer.

Who will be the GOP’s anti-Trump, anti-Cruz candidate – promising to unite the party and, more importantly, beat the Democratic nominee in November?

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida became the most-likely-to-succeed Wednesday, winning the endorsement of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley.

But with Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas holding first and second in most S.C. polls, seizing the third-place ticket out of South Carolina could be the best hope for Rubio — and the other GOP candidates — to remain viable.

And third may not be enough.

Saturday’s primary could be the last shot for a mainstream GOP candidate to break out, preventing the nomination of an anti-establishment candidate — Trump, who won New Hampshire, or Cruz, who won Iowa. Party elders fear either would fare poorly in the general election.

“South Carolina is huge for the Republicans,” at least those hoping to avoid an anti-establishment candidate winning the nomination, said Scott Buchanan, a political scientist at The Citadel.

“If Rubio doesn't make it into second, I'm hard pressed to see how long his candidacy can be viable.”

Polling third in most recent S.C. surveys, Rubio faces competition from others to be the anti-Trump, anti-Cruz, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

But a third-place finish could spell doom for any Republican who wants to be the mainstream alternative to Trump or Cruz.

“If he (Rubio) were to come in third in South Carolina” – after third in Iowa, then sliding in New Hampshire – “that's not a harbinger of good things for Rubio or for the Republican establishment,” Buchanan said. Read more.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article60970992.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article60970992.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article60970992.html#storylink=cpy

Trump slips, Rubio surges in new Oklahoma presidential poll

(The Oklahoman) - Less than a month before the state's presidential primary, Republican front-runner Donald Trump appears to be losing steam in Oklahoma, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Trump continues to lead an eight-candidate Republican field, with 30 percent of Oklahoma GOP voters reporting that they planned to vote for the New York billionaire, down from 35 percent in a poll released Jan. 23.

"Early on, Trump's been able to channel the anger and frustration felt among Republicans toward President Obama, but anger and frustration can only take you so far in a presidential race," said Bill Shapard, founder of SoonerPoll, an Oklahoma City-based firm that conducted the poll.

Meanwhile, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz held steady at 25 percent while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio surged, rising from 10 percent in late January to 21 percent this week. Read more.

Game, Set, Match...Nikki Haley Set to Pass the Neocon Torch to Marco Rubio (JEB! lite) today

Later today, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will endorse Marco Rubio for the Neoconservative Republican Party nomination. This is undoubtedly coming after great pressure from war profiteers and other important party donors to promote one neoconservative alternative to Donald Trump, and represents a formal, final, and complete repudiation of the Bush Dynasty as the official political family of neoconservatism. Once the nomination race dwindles down to only three options, Rubio is expected to start winning, at a minimum, thin plurality victories in the "winner take all" states which should insure him the nomination on the first ballot at the Neoconservative Party convention in Cleveland.  This arrangement could be the mechanism for Trump to bolt and run as an independent as early as late March or early April.

A formal announcement from Haley is expected later today.

JEB! Bush needs savagery, not heart

(Politico) - With the political demise of Jeb possibly imminent, the Bush family decided to send out its big guns: George W. Bush, Laura Bush and even Jeb’s mother, Barbara Bush. (George H.W. Bush does not appear to be well enough to travel much.)

At a recent rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, George W. used a couple of laugh lines to build a warm and fuzzy image for himself, which, as the chief architect of the Iraq War, he has been lacking.

“I’ve written two books, which has surprised a lot of people, particularly up East, who didn’t think I could read, much less write,” he said. “I’ve been one to defy expectations. I’ve been misunderestimated most of my life.”

He got the desired laughs, but then he got onto dangerous ground: the truth.

“There seems to be a lot of name calling going on,” the former president said seriously, “but I want to remind you what our good dad told me one time — labels are for soup cans.”

Really? Did George H.W. Bush really tell his eldest son not to label people or call them names?

Then what was George H.W. doing when he unleashed the ugly forces of racism in this country by hanging the Willie Horton label around the neck of his opponent, Michael Dukakis, in the 1988 race?

“By the time we’re finished, they’re going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis’ running mate,” Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, bragged about that label.

The son cannot be blamed for the sins of the father, of course. But what about George W. himself? He had lost his first presidential race by more than 500,000 popular votes and became president only because of a one-vote margin in the Supreme Court.

That was his first presidential race. What could be used to win his second? How about a smear campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? It ran such shameful ads against John Kerry that its label has entered history: According to my crack research staff (Wikipedia) swiftboating “has come into common use to refer to a harsh attack by a political opponent that is dishonest, personal and unfair.”

Labels are for soup cans? No, they’re for bare-knuckle politics, the kind that the Bush family has used to win presidencies...

Jeb doesn’t need a heart, a brain or a backbone. He needs a campaign of unremitting savagery.

Read more.

Jeb Bush’s gun tweet is a portrait of the American nightmare

By posting an image of his gun, the Republican candidate is hoping to appeal to the irrationality that has enabled Trump’s rise. In fact, it reveals he is giving up

(The Guardian) - When a man hoping to be president of the United States can sum up his own country with a photograph of a monogrammed gun and the single-word caption “America”, it may be time for the rest of the world to worry.

Instead they are laughing. Since the Republican nomination hopeful (although not very hopeful) Jeb Bush tweeted a picture of his handgun he has been mocked around the world with images that comically replace that violent symbol with the gentler images that sum up less trigger-happy places – a cup of tea for the UK, a bike for the Netherlands, a curry for Bradford.

The joke’s a bit thin, because what is currently happening in US politics is only funny if you are an alien watching from a spaceship and the fate of the entire planet is just one big laugh to you. For what is Bush trying to achieve with this picture? He’s trying to appeal to the rage and irrationality that have made Donald Trump’s bombastical assault on the White House look increasingly plausible while Bush languishes, a conventional politician swamped by unconventional times.

The centre cannot hold, WB Yeats wrote nearly a century ago, and this photograph shows exactly how off centre things are getting. When Jeb Bush – brother of one warmongering president, son of another, and a governor who sanctioned 21 executions during his tenure in Florida – embodies the centre ground, you know things have got strange. Compared with the strongman politics, explicit bigotry and perversion that a Trump presidency threatens, mere conservatism would be sweet sanity.

But this photograph reveals that that is not on offer. America, says Bush’s Twitter account, is a gun with your name on it. The candidate has his name inscribed on his weapon – Gov Jeb Bush, it says on the barrel. This man is a gun. He’s primed and loaded. You think Trump talks tough? Well, talk is cheap. “Speak softly, and carry a big stick,” said Theodore Roosevelt. Bush has got this gun, see, and he knows how to use it.

Violence has directly entered the bloodstream of US politics, this picture tells us. The comments immediately appended to it confirmed this, with sick jokers speculating it was some kind of suicide note. Sarah Palin and Donald Trump don’t need to wave guns about to show they mean business. Everyone can see that they are scary.

When the scary ones – the really, really scary ones – start getting their claws into democracy, what do you do? Bush, clearly one of the “losers” Trump is always telling us about, has responded with this pathetic attempt to play the macho man too. Of course, it looks puny. Having your name on your gun and revealing this in a photograph makes you look like a bullied schoolboy desperately trying to resemble a bully. Read more.

Jeb Bush, Going for Broke in South Carolina, Embraces Legacy

(New York Times) - In his early days as a presidential candidate, Jeb Bush appeared to campaign in a defensive stance: Sensitive about his political patrimony, he insisted he was his “own man” and struggled to address the conduct of the Iraq war under his brother, President George W. Bush.

Saddled with a record of supporting lenient immigration policy, Mr. Bush practiced the politics of reassurance, putting his plans for border security front and center and declaring prominently in a summer debate that he would never support “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants.

But in the final days of the South Carolina primary campaign, Mr. Bush has almost entirely shed that caution. If he once seemed determined to prove he was more than a political legacy kid, he is presenting himself to voters now as precisely that.

Trailing in the polls and fighting for his political life in a conservative, Southern state, Mr. Bush has offered an unrestrained embrace of the softer-edged governing philosophy that Republican insiders refer to as Bushism: a political sensibility focused on making government more responsive, rather than slashing its size, and encompassing policies like school vouchers and creating a pathway to legal status for workers who are undocumented.

Mr. Bush has pointed frequently in South Carolina to his brother George as a Republican success story, stressing his record on national security and his insistence on creating a conservative message that could appeal to economically disadvantaged voters and racial minorities.

Standing beside the 43rd president in a convention hall here on Monday, Jeb Bush called on Republicans to emulate his brother and campaign in a more inclusive tone, with an eye toward expanding the party.

“The only way a Republican and a conservative wins is by campaigning with their arms wide open, with a hopeful, optimistic message, campaigning in every nook and cranny of this country,” he said. In other words, he explained, the Republican nominee must “campaign like George W. did.”

From the outset of the 2016 race, Mr. Bush said he was willing to lose the primary to win the general, a statement of principle intended to signal that he would not lurch to the right in an effort to placate the party’s most conservative wing. But facing annihilation at the hands of Donald J. Trump, Mr. Bush has taken up the mantle of what his brother labeled “compassionate conservatism” with new vigor. Read more.

JEB! currently polling at 1 percent in Nevada. Will he drop out before then?

(The Hill) - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump holds a commanding lead in the party’s Feb. 23 Nevada caucuses, according to a CNN/ORC poll released on Wednesday. 

Trump has 45 percent support, followed by 19 percent who said they are backing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), 17 percent who are backing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and 7 percent who are backing retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) comes in fifth, with 5 percent support, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, with 1 percent support. Read more.

Jeb Bush domain name redirects to Trump site

(The Hill) - The long-standing feud between Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and GOP rival Jeb Bush escalated on Monday, with a site with the former Florida governor’s name redirecting to Trump’s campaign website homepage.

 

A site with the domain name JebBush.com redirects to the real estate mogul’s official presidential campaign page, donaldjtrump.com, and features Trump’s slogan with options to support or donate to his campaign.

Bush’s official presidential campaign page uses the domain name Jeb2016.com.

The Daily Caller reported Monday that JebBush.com is registered to Fabulous.com PTY Ltd., which manages domain names, and noted that the website was updated on Nov. 21.

Two other domain names that incorporate Bush’s name and the word president already exist but aren't operated by his campaign.

JebBushforPresident.com is a blog about a gay couple who owns the website andJebBushforPresident.net is used to oppose Bush’s record. That website says it was updated on Dec. 7. Read more.

Meet the Scalia Death Truthers: Was He Murdered by Obama or Aliens?

(The Daily Beast) - On Saturday evening, conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones, red-faced with an unfortunate pustule on his forehead, delivered an emergency broadcast on his Facebook page.

“Associate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia died earlier today at a ranch outside Big Bend, south Texas,” Jones, furrowing his brow into a wavy crest, said approximately three inches from a camera....

“I wish it was natural causes,” Jones said of Scalia’s death, which was determined to have been caused by a heart attack. “But my gut tells me no. If this is an assassination, it signifies that they’re dropping the hammer. That’s the canary in the coal mine.”

Who is they in this scenario? Well, anyone in President Obama’s administration that has been culpable for a litany of offenses including but not limited to private funding of the Islamic State and blackmailing Supreme Court justices for desired outcomes. In this “season of treason,” Jones said the American public would be “fools not to ask the question.”...

Jones also said that Scalia himself—while alive, of course—told fellow conspiracy-monger Matt Drudge that government officials are leading a cavalry to come after everyone including the journalists mentioned here as well. “It’s really dangerous,” Jones said.

Trump’s campaign did not respond when The Daily Beast asked if they were concerned about Obama’s plot to kill their candidate.

Trump, as he’s want to do, subtly egged on the wingnuts in an interview on Michael Savage’s radio show on Monday.

“It’s a horrible topic, but they say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow. I can’t give you an answer,” Trump said stoking the conspiracy flames. Read more.

JEB! is about to suffer a world class humiliation in South Carolina; "suspension" must follow

The mobs are metaphorically running down the driveway of the compound at Walker's Point in Kennebunkport, the Bush family's version of Versailles. And Donald Trump is leading them. When Babs and Poppy look up they don't understand.  "Why do they hate us so? After all we have done for them?"

Yes, the Bushes have done much for the Trump voters who now say they are voting against the entire Bush Republican neoconservative legacy "with their middle finger."  What have the Bushes done for them? They have told them over and over how decent Bushes are, and how compassionate. They have cut taxes many times on job creators.  Have have given them many lovely wars.

And now this is the thanks they get?  JEB! is running in 2016 on those empty fumes of Bush "decency," and he is finally going to sputter to a dead stop in the deserving state of South Carolina on Saturday.

South Carolina is the poetically just place to bury JEB!'s presidential entitlement.  It was here in 2000 that his brother, with a little anonymous help from Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, robbed John McCain of his momentum after he trounced W. in New Hampshire by running push polls asking South Carolina voters if they knew McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock.  This was fair in Bush love and war because McCain had the audacity to include an adopted Bangladeshi  child in his family photos making their way around the campaign.

And JEB! brought out W. yesterday in Charleston to help sink his campaign further.

Consider the level of humiliation coming the Bush family's way in the next few days.  Trump is going around loudly peddling the idea, as a putative Republican presidential candidate, that the last Republican president was a liar, misrepresented evidence to lead the US wrongly into war, implied he could have been impeached for doing so, and was responsible for 911 because he was president when it happened (instead of like ever other Republican blaming Clinton, Gore, and Obama for 911, or anyone but Bush or bin Laden). The only thing Trump hasn't done is outright call W. a war criminal.

Yet Trump will crush JEB! in South Carolina on Saturday, and likely JEB! will also be routed by his traitorous protege Marco Rubio, whose has out neo-conned him at every turn. And if that happens, JEB!'s campaign cannot stand any longer.

How the Bush family’s reinvention is now hurting Jeb Bush

(Washington Post) - Prescott Bush — businessman, banker, father of George H. W. Bush and grandfather to Jeb and George W. Bush — was Connecticut's senior senator for most of the 1950s. When George H. W. Bush first ran for the presidency in 1980, he ran as a Texan despite having been born in Massachusetts and lived in Connecticut. H. W. and his family moved to the Lone Star State after he served in World War II and graduated from Yale. So while George W. Bush was born in New Haven, he grew up mostly in Texas.

There's significance to that. When George H. W. Bush won the presidency in 1988, Connecticut had voted Republican in 8 of the previous 11 presidential contests. It hasn't since. The Bushes, like the Republican Party, moved south and west and became a dominant force in American politics.

When George W. Bush smiled and waved his way onto a stage in South Carolina on Monday night in an effort to bolster Jeb's candidacy, there were a lot of observations that came easily. George W. Bush — in part due to enjoying the freedom of not being the candidate — seemed much more natural at outlining the case for his brother than Jeb has at any point over the last year. He did the best job that he possibly could ensuring wobbly South Carolina voters that electing another Bush would mean electing another Bush — that Jeb would be the same steady hand and affable leader that so many Republicans appreciated from 2001 to 2009. But given Jeb's campaign so far, this is not necessarily an easy sell. Read more.

Donald Trump is continuing to thrash George W. Bush over his handling of 9/11 (and crushing JEB! who is in single digits, and everyone else in latest SC poll)

(Business Insider) - At a press conference on Monday, Donald Trump doubled down on his claims that former President George W. Bush did not keep the country safe because of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"I've heard for years he kept the country safe after 9/11," Trump said. "What does that mean, after? What about during 9/11? I was there. I lost a lot of friends that were killed in that building. The worst attack ever in this country, it was during his presidency. ... By the way, after that, we did ok. That's meaning the team scored 19 runs in the first inning, but after that we played well. I don't think so."

Trump is campaigning in South Carolina ahead of the state's primary contest later this week. The real-estate mogul, who is a front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has been touting his opposition to the Iraq War, whichsome say that Trump has misrepresented.

Trump has used his supposed opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq to attack former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), whose brother was the president when the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened. He said at the Republican debate on Saturday night that "the World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign."

He went even further than that at the press conference, implying that the US should not have toppled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein because he went after terrorists in Iraq.

"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. But one thing about him, he killed terrorists," Trump said. "Now Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to become a terrorist? You go to Iraq. Saddam Hussein understood, and he killed terrorists."

Trump also said that the US "shouldn't have been" in Iraq and "shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out."

"If the president went to the beach, we would have been better off, believe me," Trump said. Read more.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is the clear front-runner heading into Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary.

A new Public Policy Polling surveyreleased Tuesday found Trump leading in the crucial third-nominating state by a large margin.

According to the poll, 35% of likely Republican voters supported Trump. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tied for second with 18%.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) trailed in fourth with 10%, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson each captured 7% of the support. Read more.

Meet the South Carolina Bush Republicans who are horrified by the Trump coronation

Look, I have these guys' number.  Willie Horton, push polling about McCain's
black baby, lying about WMD and "keeping us safe."
And they call ME a bigot? It ain't"bean bag," Jebbie! (drum trill)

Will they really take Bernie over Trump, or vote for Hillary as some suggested? At least they might allow either to win by not voting! But Big Gulp Mike will rescue them!

(Washington Post) - The town-hall audience listened as Jeb Bush spent the better part of an hour taking shots at Donald Trump — comparing the Republican front-runner to President Obama, comparing him to Vladimir Putin, calling him a bully, saying he denigrates women and the disabled. When it was over, some in attendance were more terrified than ever.

“I’m going to head right back home and get on my hands and knees and pray that Trump isn’t the nominee,” Charlene Knight, 73, said, clutching her husband’s shoulder. “Oh Lord,” she pantomimed, her plume of white hair trembling as she shook her head, “please, anyone but him.”

“I’d take Bernie over Trump,” her husband, Mike Knight, confessed, staring at his shoes.

Outside the auditorium, Erin Mercer, 35, stopped on the way to her car to tell friends how she really felt about Trump: “He’s a misogynist, a bigot, and let’s just say in my middle-aged mom set, a lot of my Republican friends even — I think a lot of them would consider voting for Hillary.”

It’s just days away from the South Carolina primary, and unless all the polling is terribly wrong, Donald Trump, the billionaire political novice and equal-opportunity insult vendor, looks like he’s going to win. And in any other election year if a candidate came in second in Iowa, first in New Hampshire and then won South Carolina, he would be the prohibitive favorite to become the nominee. Read more.

Donald Trump reminds Republicans he can sink their party even if he loses the nomination

(Vox) - Donald Trump commands a first-place lead in the polls and may have the clearest path to the Republican nomination of any candidate in the presidential race.

But his allegiance to the Republican Party remains as brittle as ever, and Trump proved it again on Monday when he resurfaced the idea that he would launch a third-party bid in retaliation to what he regards as unfair treatment by the GOP leadership.

In September 2015, Trump signed a pledge not to launch an independent bid for president if he lost the GOP primary. There was a catch: He added an exception to the pledge that made it invalid if the Republicans mistreated him — "a loophole so enormous it could mean anything Trump wants," as New York magazine's Jonathan Chait pointed out.

Trump affirmed his willingness to exploit that crater-size exception during a town hall in South Carolina on Monday, in which he criticized the GOP for allegedly packing the last Republican debate audience with Trump opponents.

"The RNC better get its act together because, you know, I signed a pledge. The pledge isn’t being honored by the RNC," Trump said, according to ABC News. "I signed a pledge, but it’s a double-edged pledge. As far as I’m concerned, they’re in default on their pledge." Read more.

There Seems No Other Track For the GOP Circus Train to Derail On: The Nominee is Going to Be Marco Rubio (JEB! lite) and Donald Is Going to Run As An Independent

Even before the first vote is cast in South Carolina, the shape of the Republican presidential race has all but settled into its inevitable train wreck finish.

Marco Rubio has to be the last man standing, and the nominee, absent something truly stunning like a Romney convention draft.  JEB! isn't going to sell, and Kasich (who is the only one sufficiently mainstream enough to win a general election) isn't sufficiently neoconservative enough to win a Republican nomination, and the Republican nominee must be a neoconservative unswervingly committed to massive tax cuts on unearned income domestically, and additional unfunded military adventurism abroad. Rubio fills that bill nicely in an package the fat cats find appealing, and one at least superficially "diverse."

Trump is playing for time until he decides when and why to bolt the "corrupt and unfair" Republican Party, and run on his own.  That scenario for Trump seems to be falling into place. First the debates are packed with Bush and Rubio supporters.  Second, once the race dwindles down to two or three candidates, he will no longer be finishing first, as Rubio (mostly likely) starts finishing first in the "winner take all' states.  That will be the point of departure for Trump.

If Hillary survives Sanders and email troubles she will limp to the Democratic nomination. With Trump and Rubio splitting up the anti-Hillary vote, she should win relatively easily in November, and owe Trump many favors.

As Predictable As A Tax Cut for Job Creators: Donald Trump Floats Idea of a Third-Party Run Again

(Yahoo News) - At a town hall today in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Donald Trump floated the idea -- without explicitly threatening to do so -- that he may run as an independent candidate.

Trump attacked the Republican National Committee, saying it "better get its act together" and it "does a terrible job." Trump said he believes the RNC treated him unfairly.

Trump also went off on the crowd that booed him during Saturday night's GOP debate in South Carolina: "Look at it, that was a wealthy room."

"The whole room was made of special interests and donors, which is a disgrace from the RNC," Trump said. "The RNC better get its act together because, you know, I signed a pledge. The pledge isn’t being honored by the RNC."

Trump signed an RNC pledge in September, agreeing not to run a third-party candidacy and to support the eventual Republican nominee.

"I signed a pledge, but it’s a double-edged pledge. As far as I’m concerned, they’re in default on their pledge," Trump said of the RNC. Read more.