JEB!watch going on conditional vacation as JEB! 2016 is put on deathwatch

Donald Trump has JEB! right where he wants him, making him defend his brother in ridiculous ways that all but destroy his chances for the presidency, and undercut any ad hominem arguments the Bush Republicans generally make against Hillary.

Trump's masterful, if not brilliant, political chess match with JEB! Bush has produced such great results that JEB! has sunk as low as 5 percent support in some recent polls. In fact, Trump has accomplished something even more devastating. He has brilliantly maneuvered the entire establishment right flank of the GOP into an incoherent and doomed defense of the GWB presidency with his latest line of attack on the Bush legacy, as evidenced by this pitiful Red State article equating the presentation of any evidence or argument of negligence by George W. Bush prior to 911 as Trutherism.

With all this good news in mind, JEB!watch will go on vacation!  Now that the threat of a third Bush presidency has been caged, for the time being, there isn't as much need for us anymore. But don't worry, we'll be back if JEB! comes back! But we hope neither of us do!

If JEB! does, and buys the Republican nomination with a little help from his family friends, then Trump will run as a third candidate, and finish him off next November. You can take that to your nearest "too big to fail" bank and deposit it. Whether Trump is a Manchurian Candidate for Hillary is debatable. Enough Republican voters bought the scam George W. Bush sold them in 2000, and enough appear willing in 2016 to buy Trump's scam, while others take Trump's bait and rally around the "W. kept us safe" mythology, so if he is working for the Clinton's, the champagne is already on ice in Chappaqua, and inaugural ball invitations are ready to send to the engravers. At this point, the only thing standing between Hillary and the presidency is Obama and the FBI.  And if they take her out, say hello to President Biden, and Vice President Warren.

Who stands to get a now likely worthless Republican nomination if the plutocrats can't revive their Crown Prince and put him over on the base?  It's really not at all clear, nor does it likely really matter much, so enjoy the Great Trump Circus while it's still in town. Make America GREAT again! By stopping JEB! 2016.  Thanks Donald, at least for that.

Game, set, match?...Trump has figured out Jeb Bush's greatest weakness as a candidate, and it's not his energy level

(Vox) - I don't know if Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination. But even if he doesn't, it's increasingly clear he's going to destroy Jeb Bush before he loses.

Over the past week, Trump and Bush have been in an argument that basically boils down to the question of was George W. Bush president on 9/11/2001?

Trump insists that Bush was president both prior to and during the 9/11 attacks, and he was therefore at least partly responsible for the security failures that permitted the tragedy. And to Trump's credit, there is considerable evidence that George W. Bush was president on 9/11/2001.

Jeb Bush's position is harder to parse: he argues that his brother was only responsible for what happened after 9/11, suggesting, perhaps, that someone else bore the responsibilities of the presidency on 9/11/2001. Or, to be a bit kinder to his position, he argues that the measure of as president isn't whether something like 9/11 happens, but whether it happens again.

The result is this absolutely brutal interview CNN's Jake Tapper conducted with Bush. "If your brother and his administration bear no responsibility at all," Tapper asks, "how do you then make the jump that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are responsible for what happened at Benghazi?"

Bush's response is almost physically painful to watch.

Trump has a bully's instinct for finding someone else's true weaknesses. His continued crack that Bush is a "low-energy" candidate is devastating precisely because it identifies a weakness not just in Bush's campaign style, but in the nature of his campaign.

Now Trump has pulled Bush into an even more dangerous quagmire: his brother's presidency. Trump is reminding every Republican voter that nominating Jeb Bush will mean running a general election campaign with two disadvantages. First, Republicans will have to answer for George W. Bush's failures in a way they wouldn't if they nominated Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorina or Donald Trump, and second, they'll need to somehow explain why they're holding Hillary Clinton responsible for Obama's presidency even as they don't hold George W. Bush responsible for George W. Bush's presidency. 

Read more.

CNN host destroys Jeb Bush: You blame Hillary for Benghazi but insist brother blameless for 9/11

(Rawstory) - Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush struggled on Sunday to explain how he could blame Hillary Clinton for the attacks in Benghazi while insisting that George W. Bush was blameless for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

While speaking to Bloomberg last week, Trump reminded the interviewer that George Bush was president when the World Trade Center was attacked in New York.

“He was president, OK?” Trump said. “Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”

The comments sparked Bush to respond by calling Trump “pathetic” in a Twitter post. And on Sunday, he continued to defend the 43rd president during an interview with CNN.

“My brother responded to a crisis and united the country, he organized our country and he kept us safe,” the GOP hopeful told Tapper. “And there’s no denying that. And the great majority of Americans believe that. And I don’t know why he keeps bringing this up.”

Tapper wondered if Bush’s loyalty to his brother “might be in some ways a political or policy liability blinding you to mistakes he made.” Read more.

Is Trump about to pull Perot II, in two acts?

The thing about Trump and Perot is that most people making the comparison miss an important point. And that is the two distinct acts of Ross Perot in 1992. The primary season tease and withdrawal, and then the summer and fall reentry.

It is obvious that Trump gives no serious consideration to any pledge not to run as an independent he made to a political party that nakedly extorted it out of him.  But Trump is all about leveraging his brand advantage, and making a business play out of this fake presidential run that enhances it, so how would imitating Perot next year fit into that mindset?

Trump has been running casually as a "Republican" so far in order to take out JEB! Bush. He appears to have succeeded in that, as Bush's negatives are way up, his poll number are in the toilet, and his plutocrat string pullers and money men are telling him to shape up and start getting really nasty (like his father and brother), or the money will dry up. 

Trump may soon drop out and hope JEB! stays taken out, and if JEB! manages to come back and buy the Republican nomination, Trump may jump back in next year as an independent. That would seem the logical choice for him, and his brand. 

Trump cannot win the GOP nomination, and dropping out while he still leads in polls using some phony excuse (business emergencies, etc.) prevents him from being embarrassed by not winning any (or many) primaries or caucuses.  No brand damage. Then if the general election winds up being Bush and Clinton, he can get back in, buy ballot access with his money, and get probably at least 20-25 percent of the vote in a low interest dynastic contest. Then he can claim he is a "winner" by pointing out he did better than Perot, better in fact than any independent since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, and he might be able to make JEB! Bush the worst performing Republican nominee (by popular vote) since Taft in 1912: worse than Hoover in 1932 and worse than Goldwater in 1964. By Trump brand standards, he would be a big "winner."

Plutocracy Alert: JEB! Bush funded by George Soro's Chinese business partner

See that flag behind me?  Made in China! Where your job will soon be headed.
So GET IN LINE, and vote JEB!... I love Jesus, and IT'S MY TURN!!!!

(Breitbart News) - Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s oil shipping business is partly financed by progressive billionaire George Soros’s Chinese business partner and protégé.

Bush’s ties to the left-wing Democratic donor could cast further suspicion on his personal business dealings during the Republican primary season.

Bush is the chairman of BH Logistics, a $26 million private equity fund that was incorporated in April 2014. Who invested in BH Logistics?

Bush’s firm received a major investment from HNA Group, a Chinese private equity firm. Bush took the money from HNA Group and spent it to invest in the gas shipping company Dorian LPG, which is incorporated in the Republic of The Marshall Islands.

What is HNA Group? And more importantly, who funds it?

Look no further than George Soros. Read more.

The dangerous precedents of a JEB! Bush presidency

(The Hill) - ...Bush was born with a presidential spoon in his mouth. The establishment choice. The name you know. He's doing well enough in the polls to pull out a victory, and he certainly won't run into any cash-flow problems.

Every current living Republican to serve as president is a Bush. Is that how it should remain in perpetuity? Why not? The infrastructure is there. The donors are there. The Bush name seems to be a powerful path to the White House. But should it be? Every election we hear Republican after Republican compare themselves to President Reagan. If a Republican makes a mistake or holds a view considered too liberal by the base, the only escape hatch is that Reagan did it too or Reagan believed the same thing.

If one of Reagan's sons were running for president, he wouldn't have to go around assuring everyone that he was his own man. Nobody would want him to be his own man! They’d all want him to be Dutch II. Nothing would befit our current culture more than a sequel or reboot of a White House classic.

No Republican candidate compares themselves to a Bush — they try to separate themselves from Bushes. When someone tosses a Bush comparison at them, they do their best impression of the Heisman trophy and give it the stiff arm. If the first two are underwhelming, why do we need a trilogy?

Great men in American history set precedents that didn't benefit them personally but helped create American exceptionalism.

George Washington could have served as president for the rest of his life. There were no term limits back then. Instead, he served two terms and walked away, allowing power to peacefully transfer from one leader to another...

Adams was defeated in a nasty election after one term as president. The electors voted to replace Adams the Federalist with Thomas Jefferson the Democratic-Republican. As partisanship goes, Adams believed the ideology of the Democratic-Republicans was a danger to the union. Even in that belief, Adams, commander in chief of the Army, allowed for the peaceful transition of power from one political party to another.

Bush has the opportunity to be like those Founding Fathers and set an important precedent. He could say, "I have all the resources to keep the presidency in the Bush family again, but that goes against the ethos of the American Revolution. It goes against the spirit of American democracy. The presidency is not meant to be passed monarchy-style from father to son to brother."

Bush can serve his country best by stepping aside. He knows that. His own mother, Barbara Bush, said in 2013 when all the 2016 speculation started, "We've had enough Bushes."

Jeb Bush should listen to his mother and bow out. If not, primary voters should listen to her and cast their vote against the informal monarchy a political dynasty imposes on us. Read more.

Jeb Bush is erasing history: Why his comments about Black Americans are even worse than you thought

(Salon) - Ronald Reagan, the scourge of Black America and the hero of the Republican Party, holds great sway over today’s conservatives. Reagan famously talked about black “welfare queens” and strapping young “bucks” as a way of mining white racial resentment to win over white voters. Decades later, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would echo Reagan’s politics of white racial resentment and grievance mongering when he was recorded warning donors about the “47 percent” of Americans who “believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.”

Last week, Jeb Bush joined that company when he said the following during a campaign stop in South Carolina:

Think about it this way, Republicans get 4 to 7 percent of the African-American vote… If you double that, you win elections in Ohio, Virginia. And we should make that case, because our message is one of hope and aspiration. It isn’t one of division, “Get in line, we’ll take care of you with free stuff.” Our message is uplifting, that says, “You can achieve earned success. We’re on your side.”

These statements are not gaffes: They are choices made by Republicans in the post-civil rights era (along with, yes, some “New Democrats”) to use centuries-old stereotypes about lazy black people to win over white voters. Racist stereotypes about “productive” white people (who are “good citizens”) and “lazy” and “unproductive” black and brown people (deemed “unfit” for democracy) are one of the pillars for a society that is built upon institutional white supremacy. Read more.