Tag Archives: Jeb Bush

national news, political news

Birthright citizenship: tough to eliminate

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baby citizens

A part of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

It’s clear, yes? Everyone born in this country is a citizen of this country.

Why, then, do some Republicans — maybe most of them — want to amend the Constitution to single out those who have the misfortune of being born to individuals who are here illegally?

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump wants to end the “birthright citizenship” clause of the 14th Amendment. He’s led the amen chorus on that one. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has joined him.

But as Eric Greider of Texas Monthly points out, some Republican presidential candidates are standing for the Constitution. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is one of them; so is U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; same for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

What do these men have in common? They all have been elected in states with substantial Latino populations, which of course is the audience being targeted by those who want to repeal birthright citizenship.

If we get rid of this citizenship provision, we will have to amend the Constitution. Don’t conservatives generally stand foursquare behind the nation’s governing document?

 

 

International news, political news

ISIL’s rise: It’s Obama’s fault?

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Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush is trying a remarkable misdirection play as he seeks the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2016.

The former Florida governor sought in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama on the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and, I presume, in Syria as well.

Well now. Let’s look at the record for a moment.

The Iraq War began in March 2003 when President George W. Bush launched the invasion of that country, which at the time was governed by a Sunni Muslim tyrant, the late Saddam Hussein. (Hang with me for a moment; the Sunni reference is critical.)

Americans were told by those high up in the Bush chain of command that we’d defeat the Iraqis easily and we’d be welcomed as “liberators.”

Didn’t turn out that way.

Yes, we defeated the so-called “elite” Iraqi forces. We drove Saddam from power. We caught him later in that spider hole, pulled him, jailed him, put him on trial, convicted him and then hanged him.

All of this was done on Jeb’s brother’s presidential watch.

Then came the new government. Iraqis elected a Shiite leader, who formed a Shiite government.

Oh yes. The Sunnis hate the Shiites and vice versa. The Islamic State — aka ISIL — is a Sunni cult.

Thus, ISIL was born — on President Bush’s watch.

Now, though, the next Bush who wants to be president, says it’s Obama’s fault. It’s Clinton’s fault.

Why? We didn’t maintain a sufficient troop garrison in Iraq to keep ISIL in check. I ought to mention that the Bush administration set the deadline for full withdrawal from Iraq.

Jeb Bush now says he would send troops back into Iraq, in effect restarting a war that we shouldn’t have fought in the first place. Weapons of mass destruction? Hideous chemical weapons? The threat of a “mushroom cloud”? It was bogus.

I’m not yet ready to declare that the pretext for war was concocted deliberately by the Bush administration high command.

Let’s just say for now that “faulty intelligence” isn’t much of an excuse for sending thousands of American service personnel to their death in a war designed to overthrow a sovereign leader who we had kept in check through a series of tough economic sanctions.

Jeb Bush is treading on some squishy ground whenever he mentions the words “Iraq War.”

 

 

 

national news, political news

Most entertaining campaign in history is on tap

So help me, I didn’t think it was possible for any campaign to be more entertaining than the 2012 campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

Thank you, Donald Trump, for smashing my expectations for the 2016 campaign.

The Donald has managed to do what I thought was impossible: He’s managed to make the likes of Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain look and sound almost reasonable, rational and mainstream.

He’s shot off his mouth about Mexican immigrants who come here illegally, stereotyping them as murderers, rapists, drug dealers — along with “some good people.” He’s called Mitt Romney a “loser” because he got beat in a campaign that he should have won; he’s challenged whether Ted Cruz of Texas is a legitimate candidate for the presidency, given that he was born in Canada.

And now he’s said John McCain isn’t really a war hero, even though he was held prisoner by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, while saying in the next breath that he likes “those who weren’t captured.”

Other Republicans have condemned Trump’s buffoonery. So have Democratic candidates.

It’s been an amazing campaign to date and we’re still months away from those Iowa caucuses and the lead-off New Hampshire primary.

Trump has managed to suck all the air out of every room he enters. The other candidates? They can’t be heard above all the ruckus created by Trump’s amazing ability to call attention to himself.

Four years ago, Bachmann and Cain — along with Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and even Rick Santorum — tried to raise a stink about this and/or that. They all were “frontrunners” for a time. Then came Romney, with all of his money and political connections, to win the GOP nomination.

Now we have Trump, who reportedly has much more wealth than Romney — and who brags about his portfolio incessantly — making a lot of racket.

But here’s the deal. He won’t be nominated. He’s going out with his guns blazing (figuratively, of course). Someone else will be nominated. If I had to bet on the next GOP nominee, I’d put my money today on either former Florida Gov. John Ellis (Jeb) Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. But they’re so boring.

Trump has turned this campaign into a circus.

Way to go, Donald. You’ve made the preceding cast of GOP contenders/pretenders look like statespersons.

political news

The Donald is now 2nd in GOP polling?

How have times changed in this country?

Consider that a three-times married (and twice divorced) real estate mogul, host of a reality TV show, self-proclaimed “very rich” guy, someone who puts his name on skyscrapers and brags about it is now the No. 2 candidate among all the Republicans running for president of the United States of America.

Trump surges to second in 2016 GOP poll

The latest Fox News poll puts Donald Trump in second place behind a more serious candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Roll that one around.

Donald … Trump. He’s No. 2 in a field of 13 and growing.

Oh, my.

political news

Jindal makes it a baker’s dozen … and counting

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is now among the growing horde of Republicans running for president of the United States.

We all thought he’d go hard after Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner (for now, at least).

But, no-o-o-o. He saved his heaviest fusillade for John Ellis Bush, the former Florida governor aka Jeb, son and brother of former presidents.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bobby-jindal-2016-presidential-announcement-119378.html?hp=t4_r

Jindal is one of the many 1 percenters running for the GOP nomination — that’s 1 percent in the public opinion polling to date. He’s got to make some noise, so he did so today.

“You’ve heard Jeb Bush saying we need to be able to lose the primary to win the general election. We’re going to help him do that,” Jindal said, launching his campaign.

Jindal said of Bush: “He is saying that we need to hide our conservative ideals. But the truth is, if we go down that road again, we will lose again.”

He calls himself a Christian who’s unafraid to proclaim his faith; he favors small government, less tax, strong defense, family values. Gosh, have we heard all this before? Do any of the GOP candidates oppose any of those things? Hardly.

Jindal’s the 13th Republican to declare his or her candidacy for the White House. More are on the way into the center ring. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is coming in; so is Ohio Gov. John Kasich. By my count that makes 15. Hey, there might be even more.

Democrats have just four candidates. How boring that primary could be if Clinton smokes the field. Then again, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, is making a serious move on HRC, at least in neighboring New Hampshire, site of the first primary.

Man, oh man. This campaign is going to be loads of fun.

 

political news, State news

Rick Perry 2.0 makes another run for White House

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Here we go again.

Rick Perry is going to run for president of the United States of America.

The former longest-serving Texas governor in state history hopes for a much better outcome than his first effort, which ended in January 2012 — before the first Republican primary ever took place. He stumbled, bumbled and fumbled badly that first time out. His debate performances were hideous, highlighted by the infamous “oops” moment which he couldn’t name the third of three federal agencies he’d dismantle if he were elected president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/rick-perry-announces-presidential-campaign-118627.html?hp=l2_4

He’s back now.

Ready for action.

He’s changed his look, wearing those eyeglasses.

Perry thinks we need a president who’ll tell them the truth, who’ll lead from the front, who’ll do all the things he says the current administration hasn’t done.

This campaign differs from the first one, however, in another key way. He became an instant frontrunner when he announced his intention to seek the 2012 GOP nomination. Perry enters this race as a distant also-ran in a field headed — for now — by the likes of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; there might be another name or three out there at the front of the pack, but Perry’s name ain’t one of them.

And I haven’t even mentioned, until right now, that he’s the first declared presidential candidate in history to run while under indictment alleging abuse of power. But, hey, that’s another story for another day.

Back when he was running for president in late 2011, I would hear from more than one Texas Panhandle Republican — and believe me, I live in the most GOP-friendly region of this GOP-friendly state — that they hoped he’d become president, but for reasons I didn’t expect to hear.

They wanted Perry to win because they wanted “to get him out of Texas.”

national news, political news

‘Protecting the homeland’?

Forgive me, please, for expressing this, but Jeb Bush might be suffering from brotherly-love blindness.

He was questioned by Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” news talk show.

Schieffer asked the former Florida governor and likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate what he learned from his brother, former President George W. Bush.

“Well, the successes clearly are protecting the homeland,” the former Florida governor opined. “We were under attack, and he unified the country, and he showed dogged determination, and he kept us safe.”

And he kept us safe. He said that.

OK, let’s reel this back a bit. The 9/11 attacks occurred on President Bush’s watch, which Jeb has acknowledged. It’s been reported from various sources that the president likely ignored warnings from his national security team that a major attack was imminent. He was briefed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, about the threat that al-Qaeda posed.

And yet …

The attack occurred on that bright Tuesday morning in New York and Washington.

President Bush “kept us safe”?

Yes, but only after all hell broke loose.

national news, political news

Dr. Carson: I wouldn't have invaded Iraq

There you have it.

The growing field of Republican presidential candidates is being sprinkled with individuals who actually are breaking with a key policy of the most recent GOP president.

Dr. Ben Carson said this week he would not have “gone into Iraq.” He said the United States could have employed other means to get rid of the late Saddam Hussein. He said the nation lacked a clear long-term strategy once Saddam had been toppled.

Carson says Iraq invasion was a mistake

“When you go into a situation with so many factions and such a complex history, unless you know what you’re doing or have a long-term strategy, it just creates more problems,” Carson told The Hill in a telephone interview.

He becomes the second major Republican figure to put daylight between himself and former President George W. Bush. The other one, more or less, was the former president’s younger brother, Jeb, who took a more awkward approach to trying to take back what he said initially in a clumsy response to a TV reporter’s direct question.

There well might be others GOP candidates who will realize the folly of going to war on what is now known to have been faulty intelligence regarding Iraq’s supposed possession of chemical weapons.

The Iraq War was a mistake. It’s good to hear Dr. Carson acknowledge as much.

I’m now waiting for former Vice President Dick Cheney — who’s been blasting Democratic officials’ criticism of the war — to weigh in against his fellow Republicans.

Well, Mr. Vice President?

 

national news

Jeb Bush channels John Kerry

Jeb Bush has had a tough time of it in recent days.

He said he’d go to war in Iraq knowing what he knows now about the absence of weapons of mass destruction.

Then he said he misheard the question from the TV journalist. Then he said he misinterpreted the question.

Finally, the former Florida governor and probable Republican presidential candidate said “No, I wouldn’t” go to war.

This all reminds me a bit of a scathing political ad that Jeb’s brother, President George W. Bush, used in his 2004 re-election campaign against Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry. It contained this snippet:

The “$87 billion” referred to the senator’s flip flop on his own vote to go to war in Iraq.

So, do you think Jeb Bush’s indecision on whether he’d go to war is going to show up in a political ad during the 2016 GOP primary, and again in the general election if his party nominates him?

I’ll bet “yes.”

International news

World is better without Saddam, but …

Marco Rubio said that thing that all of us know to be true.

The world, said the U.S. senator from Florida, “is a better place” without Saddam Hussein walking among us. He told Fox News Sunday that President George W. Bush made the right call in invading Iraq in March 2003, even though he acted on intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be faulty.

Presidents, said Rubio — who’s running for president himself — don’t have the benefit of hindsight when they make critical decisions.

Again, true enough, senator.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rubio-iraq-invasion-was-not-a-mistake/ar-BBjTt0s

But here’s the issue, as I see it — and no doubt others will see it differently:

The world would be a better place without a long list of sovereign leaders. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe comes to mind. So does North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. How about getting rid of Vladimir Putin in Russia? Other countries are ruled by tinhorn dictators and despots.

Is it our place to invade any of those other countries to get rid of evil rulers?

Rubio was standing behind his fellow Floridian, former Gov. Jeb Bush, who (now) famously told Fox’s Megyn Kelly he would have invaded Iraq, too, even with what we now know about the missing WMDs. Bush also, let’s add, is likely to run for president as well as Rubio and a host of other GOP candidates.

The problem with the Iraq War and the precedent it set is that we’ve now laid down a predicate for future efforts to rid the planet of evil men in high places.

The tough economic sanctions we had imposed on Saddam Hussein after the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 had contained that madman. The invasion was unnecessary, costly and far more troublesome than any of the president’s inner circle led the nation to believe it would be.

Oh, and one more thing: Saddam Hussein had nothing, zero, to do with 9/11.

Is the world better off without Saddam Hussein? Sure it is. Is it a safer place because we got rid of him? Only if you discount the presence of the Islamic State.