Sunday, August 2, 2015

JEB! Bush 2016 Top Campaign Donors Connected To Iran, Cuba

If Hillary can do this sort of thing, so can I. Who dares question me?
IT"S MY TURN! She had hers eight years ago and blew it
.
(International Business Times) - Two of the top donors to Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise [aka Rule] super PAC have clear connections to Cuba and Iran, two areas of foreign policy where the presidential hopeful has marked a clear line of opposition between himself and President Barack Obama. Both donors have lived in the United States for decades and are part of a record-breaking campaign fundraising haul that topped $100 million for the pro-Bush group, according to an analysis of campaign finance data by the Guardian.

On Cuba, Bush has been one of the most vocal critics of Obama’s decision to reestablish diplomatic relationships after decades of silence between Havana and Washington. On the pending nuclear agreement with Iran, Bush has been critical as well, though he has stopped short of saying that he would reverse course on the agreement immediately after taking office, should he win.
One of the two donors is Iranian-American Hushang Ansary, Iran's ambassador to the U.S. for two years from 1967 to 1969 before the 1979 Iranian revolution. During the revolution, 52 American diplomats and private citizens were held hostage in Tehran for 444 days. Today, Ansary is a prominent businessman with deep ties to the Bush family, having served on President George W. Bush’s national finance committee of his reelection campaign and currently serving as a trustee on that president’s presidential library. Ansary was also a top contributor to a fund for commissioning and amenities of the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. Ansary, between himself and his wife, gave $2 million to the super PAC. Read more.

The Crown Prince is third in another poll, it's time to turn Rove loose

I will not be denied my God-ordained birthright and turn!
Republican money and donor frontrunner The Crown Prince John Ellis Bush has placed third in another poll, this time the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.  He is again behind Donald Trump and Scott Walker.

You can bet the money bombs and negative tricks against Walker and Kasich are coming very soon, and in fact may already be starting against Kasich to try and abort his candidacy in the political womb.  A Bush performing an abortion?  Well if JEB! can sit on the board of a charity that would funnel tens of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood, he can certainly pay to have Kasich's presidential run aborted. If only there were a video of that luncheon chit chat.  Look out for the coming fireworks.

BIG! Ed goes AWOL on his last day at PMSNBC

BIG! Ed Schultz got the word middle of last month from PMSNBC head Phil Griffin that there was no longer a place for him at the "lean forward" network as it tries to pitch headlong into a re-brand and ratings re-boot as a more serious "news" network, yet with a place still held for Al Sharpton, and a new place created for Brian Williams as their go to anchor for "breaking news." Schultz's response was to let Michael Eric Dyson do the last "Ed Show" episode Friday. Could that mean maybe BIG! Ed has something in the works?

Watch out, now that FOX has canned Bob Beckel, BIG! Ed has an obvious opening over at The Five. Don't think FOX wouldn't want to market his train wreck appeal, and probably pay him more than PMSNBC ever did (or could). The Keystone Pipeline thing was certainly not the first "flip flop" for BIG! Ed. He was once a nasty and loud right wing blowhard (whose agent pitched him to FOX), and going to FOX at last would be like coming home, sorta.  Here's hoping BIG! Ed soon lends some additional fairness and balance to the Bush News Network, and a big pay raise to his bank account.

Friday, July 31, 2015

How Donald Trump can really impact the 2016 race in a positive way.

Donald Trump, simply put, is not going to be the Republican nominee, and he is not going to be president. Trump cannot override the entire Republican party leadership and their rigged rules, nor can he overcome the limitations of his appeal with GOP primary voters. He has a ceiling.  It's a high ceiling in a crowded race, one that puts him clearly in front right now, but don't look for him ever to rise much above 30 percent support.

And The Donald cannot win the election running as a third option, though he probably could do as well, if not better, than Perot.  There is, however, one condition where he should nonetheless run rogue, and serve his country well by doing so.

At some point in the future Donald Trump should call a press conference and announce to the world that he will run as an independent only under one condition.  And that condition is if JEB! Bush buys the Republican nomination.  JEB! is hellbent on doing it, and he has the plan, the people, and the organization in place to do it.  He already has the support of the most reactionary plutocrat donors who are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into buying his influence.

When should Trump begin his electoral blackmail of the party elites?  Not now, and not next week. He should do it when JEB!, Rove and Company take off the gloves and commence their PAC-driven campaign of universal destruction against all credible opposition.  When the money bombs against Walker, Kaisch,  etc. begin.  They will have to do it, and then Donald should make his move.

The bottom line is that Donald Trump can save America from JEB! Bush.  He has already damaged his "brand," so why not go for a real payoff with meaning?

Why would he do it?  Trump had given Hillary money in the past, and prior to the 2000 election he even spoke well of JEB!  Before his brother stole that election with JEB!'s Florida voter roll purging help, and then nearly destroyed the country.

Trump should do it for these reasons:

America can survive four years of Hillary Clinton (or Joe Biden) with Republicans in control of Congress, as each put limits on the others most self serving and kleptocratic instincts.  Can American survive four (or eight bought years) of JEB! Bush thieving and warring together with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell?

A JEB! Bush presidency would result in a multi-trillion dollar unwinnable war against Iran, and more catastrophic and neocon driven, ill-conceived middle east adventurism in Iraq and beyond. If you doubt this, just listen to neocons John Bolton and Norman Podhoretz unambiguously state the foreign policy position of another Bush administration.

A JEB! Bush presidency would result in much higher oil and gas prices.  Hillary Clinton's pay to play history with the Clinton Foundation is reprehensible, but it can't begin to compare with the Bush family's long history of serving as "manchurian candidates" for Saudi and other oil-client state interests.

A JEB! Bush presidency, with a GOP Congress, would result in much higher deficits, and an almost certain sovereign debt crisis at some point.

A JEB! Bush presidency would result in a renewed orgy of klepto-plutocratic treasury raiding and subsidization of speculative financial moral hazard.

A JEB! Bush presidency would result in increasing income and wealth concentration beyond the current destabilizing levels, accelerated middle class collapse, and perpetual low GDP growth driven by ruinous tax and trade policies that promote wealth preservation through tax-subsidized asset bubbles, but not domestic growth economics.

Hillary Clinton may be a crook (well she is a crook) but comparing her political immorality with JEB! Bush's is like comparing a part-time boiler room telemarketer's with Bernie Madoff's. Donald Trump, of all people, should understand that.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

The real story behind the Quinnipiac swing state poll, and another "shocker"

The media is finally reporting on a political story that does not feature Donald Trump.

It's the series of new Quinnipiac polls in Iowa, Colorado, and Virginia that indicate The Hildabeast, battered by recent radioactive (as in uranium) and email scandals, polling in the high '30s and low '40s against three potential Republican rivals.  That's the only part of the story the media will spin.

There is another, more important part of this story that media will ignore.  Of the three Republican options (Bush, Walker, and Rubio), the Crown Prince John Ellis Bush, with already essentially universal name recognition, polls consistently at the bottom.  Here are the numbers:

QUINNIPIAC SWING STATE POLL:


Does anyone really believe that JEB! Bush will get anywhere near 50 percent in any swing state next November?  Even against Hillary Clinton?

And another poll "shocker" is the Washington Post/ABC poll that dared poll Donald Trump in a three way race with JEB! and Hilldog.  Hint, he does better than Perot, and JEB! turns in the worst performance for a Republican nominee since Taft in 1912.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Donald Trump: The "Borscht Belt" Candidate

Donald Trump is not really running for president, anymore than Pat Paulson once was.  He is running to impact it yes, but not to win it.

Donald Trump, like Herman Cain before him, is a postmodern presidential candidate.  A performance artist at work.

JEB! and other Bushes may be postmodern in that they don't believe in any objective principals other than their own sense of political entitlement, and with the help of political Svengalis like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, they have in the past ruthlessly used racism, xenophobia, and identity politics to deceive and manipulate ill informed and gullible "grievance" voters, but Donald Trump is giving them an absurdist Dorian Gray lesson in what's objectively wrong with them, their politics, and the postmodern political party they created.

His inspiration is pure show biz, particularly a venerable type of vaudeville and burlesque act from the past. His stump speech is a farcical Catskills stand up roast routine where he transforms an angry Henny Youngman or Buddy Hackett into a dystopian version of Will Rogers, with a calculated bit of Lonesome Rhodes and Howard Beale thrown in for leavening. Only if you understand him this way can you explain such improv gems as the recent John McCain diatribe. The only thing missing there was the drum and cymbal trill at the end.

Some gullible pundits think Trump is helping JEB! by deflating his "serious" opposition.  Some think he is actually working for Hillary.  Trump is working for himself of course, but the smart money would bet his real goal is to derail JEB! 2016.  Eventually after turning a few debates into Dean Martin roast parodies, he will drop out and endorse someone he considers the "right" serious man for the job in 2016.  It won't be JEB! Soon thereafter, if his choice isn't winning, he will drop a big media bomb that he will run as an independent if the "wrong" candidate winds up buying the Republican nomination.  It doesn't require a lot of imagination to figure out who that might be.

JEB! Bush Is Meaner Than He Looks

How do you like my new set of horns, Donald?
(...John, Marco, Scott, and Krispy Kris?)  
If the other Bush campaigns are any guide, the gloves are about to come off.

(Politico) - Like father, like son—or perhaps it’s the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Whatever cliché you prefer, one of the useful things about dynasties is that patterns emerge over time. With the Clintons, for instance, we know to pay attention to every modifying word and each verb tense they use (the meaning of “is” and such). The whole truth usually has to be dragged out of them—or discovered independently.


Similarly, an examination of the Bush family legacy in campaigning makes clear that Jeb Bush’s “Mr. Nice Guy” routine isn’t likely to last all that long. Most presidential candidates have a streak of ruthlessness in them—even the nice guys. Make that especially the nice guys. They’re mild-mannered and courteous in public, so someone else has to do the dirty work of winning for them.

Jeb Bush will prove this again. It’s an easy prediction that he’ll follow his brother and father in bushwhacking any opponent standing between him and the presidency. With the Bushes, do not take too seriously their assertions of personal sweetness. Read more.