Jeb Bush

[boutons_deux]

Lehman Brothers Gave Jeb Bush $1.3 Million After He Gave It Control of Florida Pensions

International Business Times' David Sirota, Matthew Cunningham-Cook and Andrew Perez have the scoop on a conflict of interest that handed former Florida governor Jeb Bush more than a million dollars.

They report that in 2005 and 2006, the bank — which later ended up collapsing during the financial crisis — was given control of $250 million of Florida pension funds belonging to police officers, firefighters and teachers. The bank ended up earning over $5 million in fees from managing the fund, and getting an additional $1.2 billion before it ended up collapsing in 2008.

The collapse left Florida with $1 billion in losses. By that point, Bush had already departed the governor's mansion, but reaped the benefits. He nabbed a job at Lehman that paid him $1.3 million.

“The Bush family is so wired that Jeb Bush would be incredibly valuable to Lehman even without him having thrown some business their direction,” former Senate financial staffer Jeff Connaughton told IBTimes. “The fact that he did shows once again that there is utterly zero deterrence preventing public officials from being on the receiving end of pay to play when they leave office. It’s par for the course— it has the appearance that Bush was using his public office for personal gain.”

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...orida-pensions

[boutons_deux]

Jeb Bush Campaign Rocked by Money Woes, Loss of Three Fundraisers

Already on a rocks from a variety of self-inflicted wounds, the Bush campaign has cut staffer pay and now lost three skilled fundraisers.

John Ellis “Jeb” Bush’s campaign was already in trouble going into this weekend, simply because voters aren’t fooled by his Jeb!persona, minus the Bush.

We all know who he is, even Republicans.

Keep in mind, this was the GOP’s presumptive frontrunner going into the 2016 campaign cycle.As of August 25, The New York Times editorial board was calling him a “forlorn candidate,” and by Friday, August 28, Bush was telling a crowd that Trump “is a guy that’s the front-runner, he should be treated like the front-runner.”

Bad as they were, things just got worse, with Politico reportingSaturday that “Three top Jeb Bush fundraisers abruptly parted ways with his presidential campaign on Friday, amid internal personality conflicts and questions about the strength of his candidacy.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/08/...iticus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

Jeb Bush Made Millions Giving Investors Billions Of Florida Pension Funds To Lose



For Florida taxpayers, their trust in then-Governor Jeb Bush to protect their lifelong pension savings was wasted when he forged a highly-profitable relationship with Lehman Brothers that made Lehman and Bush millions.

That special relationship was ultimately a certifiable disaster for Florida public employees. While governor of Florida, Jeb Bush made some deceitful transfers of funds in 2005 and 2006 that put the Wall Street investment bank in charge of $250 million worth of pension funds for Florida cops, teachers and firefighters.

Lehman profited by more than $5 million in fees on the initial deal with Jeb Bush, and they garnered several additional contracts to manipulate, and then lose, another $1.2 billion of Florida teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public servant’s pensions.

Of course those horrific losses came after profits for Lehman and Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

When Lehman collapsed into bankruptcy in the fall of 2008, it left Florida’s public employee pension funds with over $1 billion in losses, but good old Jeb kept the $1.3 million in annual salary Lehman paid him as a consultant, or for giving them access to billions of Florida public workers’ pension savings.

Being Florida’s governor and having access to billions of state employees’ retirement savings, coupled with an “enduring personal relationship” with Lehman Brothers was a very lucrative endeavor for Bush.

It is a similar relationship and lucrative scam to that of several other Republican governors who repay their big-money donors with public employee’s pension savings that Republicans persist in claiming belongs to the rich.

It is prescient to note that Jeb was shifting state pension money to privatization for “management” and predictable losses at about the same time his brother George was crusading to do exactly the same thing with all Americans’ Social Security retirement savings.

It was no coincidence that within a couple of weeks after Jeb Bush left the governor’s mansion and took the Lehman job with a handsome salary courtesy of stolen Florida employees’ pensions, the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) handed over to Lehman additional pension money, $842 million, to buy worthless Lehman mortgage-backed securities the company lost.

In fact, to add insult to the billions of dollars in lost pension savings, the Florida SBA shifted an additional $420 million of pension savings into the exact same fund that good old Jeb initially sent stolen pension money to squander.

It is noteworthy that the Florida SBA, that three-member body that gave away billions of state employees’ retirement savings recently counted Jeb Bush as one of the three.

What makes this theft even more egregious is that Bush’s colleagues in the Florida state capital moved billions of Florida employees’ pension money to Bush’s buddies at Lehman even as dire warnings about its financial troubles began to grow very loud.

However, while teachers, firefighters, law enforcement and state workers lost billions of their lifelong pension savings, Jeb Bush got his millions, and Lehman got its millions for “managing” the pilfered money.

And, it is notable that it was not an isolated Florida Bush incident using employee pensions for profit.

Just a few years earlier another Bush pension scam profited all the Bushes as well as a number of obscenely wealthy investment and financial firms, and it was all with Florida employees’ pension savings to keep George W. Bush in the White House.

In April it was revealed that while he was governor, Jeb also funneled billions of Florida pension money to his brother George’s largest campaign donors as remuneration for their huge political contributions to put and keep a Wall Street friendly Bush in the White House.

The Florida SBA, of which Jeb was one of three members, committed close to $2 billion of Florida employees’ pension money to financial firms whose executives were considered “Pioneer” fundraisers for George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns.

The requirement to reach the highly-profitable “Pioneer status” was amassing a minimum of $100,000 worth of bundled contributions to any one of George W. Bush’s campaigns.

According to a comprehensive International Business Times analysis of Florida government do ents, and a list of George W. Bush’s bundlers compiled by Public Citizen, there were no less than 11 firms that received the Jeb Bush pension investments because they were qualified as “Pioneers.”

Further analysis of data from the Florida Division of Elections and Political Moneyline determined how much money executives from those firms donated directly to Jeb Bush’s campaigns, George W. Bush’s campaigns, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Florida between 1998 and 2006 while Jeb Bush was in charge.

For example, Lehman Brothers, already recipients of Florida pension largesse courtesy of Jeb Bush donated $499,000 to Bush campaigns and received $175 million in pension money from Bush.

Also included in the eleven investment firms was the largest private equity firm in the world, the Carlyle Group, where Bush daddy George H. W. Bush served as senior adviser from 1998 to 2003 during the time all these “Pioneer” transactions were occurring.

The Carlyle Group received $275 million of Florida public employees’ pension savings for donating $69,000 to keep George W. Bush in the White House.

As one pundit noted, the special relationship between Jeb and giant financial ins utions really means that the “quid pro quo was a double windfall for the Bush clan,” and contributed to monumental pension losses for Florida public employees.

One can hardly blame the giant investment firms because they all enjoyed unbelievably profitable returns on their political donation investment.

It is noteworthy that what Bush was doing as a matter of course in Florida for eight years is precisely the same scam Chris Christie has been profiting from while running rampant over public employees in New Jersey.

It is nothing less than looting state pension funds to reward political donors and a blatant example of shafting middle class workers who paid into these funds for their retirement.

Instead of reaping the pensions they built up over their working lives, Jeb Bush lost their money while benefitting the filthy rich who bankroll the same Republicans who pledge to repay them with more stolen pension funds.

To be fair to Republicans everywhere, this scam is a well-executed machination of the Koch brothers’ American Legislative Exchange Council and State Policy Network to rob state pension funds in every state in the union; neither Florida or New Jersey are isolated incidents.

The Bush clan are all corrupt and exist for the benefit of their wealthy donors at the expense of all Americans.

It is just how they operate and the only way they know to govern; and yes, for all Republicans giving away everything the population owns to the richest one percent is what they mean by governing.

It should not be a revelation that Jeb Bush, a typical Republican, had no compunction giving away at least a couple of billions-of-dollars of middle class Americans’ pension savings to his favorite campaign donors to lose at their pleasure, or that he made millions in the process; it is what Republicans do.

But it should be a warning to voters, including Republican voters, that neither Jeb Bush, nor any Republican, can ever be entrusted with the keys to the nation’s, or the people’s, treasures no matter how small, because they will give it all away to the rich. It is just how they operate and what they consider good governance.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/08/...iticus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

In Florida Jeb Bush is Running Third

• Bush: 18.6 percent
• Carson: 24.5 percent
• Trump: 28.9 percent

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...er1042348&t=18

[boutons_deux]

Trump Holds Big New Hampshire Lead While Jeb Falls To Fifth In GOP Poll

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/polltra...+%28TPMNews%29

and JEB says he's gonna kick Trump's ass in the next debate, no more "Mr cerebral nice guy"

[boutons_deux]

Nearly Half Of Florida Voters Say Jeb And Rubio Should Quit 2016 Race

Florida voters agree, according to a poll released Tuesday: their former governor as well as one of their current U.S. senators should drop out of the presidential campaign.

Forty-seven percent of Florida voters said Jeb Bush should stop campaigning while 48 percent said Marco Rubio should join him, according to a poll from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling.

Not only is Florida considered a swing state, but it's also both politicians' home base.

The numbers improve when Florida's Republican voters were surveyed. Fifty-two percent of Florida GOP voters said Bush should continue his bid whereas 62 percent said Rubio should.

The poll was conducted among 814 voters, 377 of whom were Republican primary voters, from Sept. 11 to 13. Eighty percent of participants completed the survey by phone. The margin of error was 3.4 percent overall and 5.1 percent for Republicans.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...+%28TPMNews%29

[boutons_deux]

Jeb: I Can Handle Foreign Policy Because 'Yes, I Am A Bush'

"I know how to do this because, yes, I am a Bush," he said, according to CNN.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...+%28TPMNews%29

Because you are a Bush (shrub da da dumb), you might be the nominee, but not gonna be Pres.

[boutons_deux]

Very Very Revealing


I'm not sure how much play this will get.

But this poll tells you a lot about the candidacies of Donald Trump and Jeb Bush.

A new PPP polls shows Trump, not surprisingly, at the head of the GOP pack. But when PPP created head to head match ups with the other contenders, Carson, Fiorina, Rubio and Walker all beat Trump and in most cases handily.

Except Jeb.

Trump beat Jeb.

So Trump really isn't that strong.

He's just got a committed following that holds the ground in a crowded field.

Another way of putting it is that as big a plurality as Trump has, the bigger deal is the majority that is clearly against him.

Meanwhile, Jeb is weak and nobody likes him.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/...+%28TPMNews%29

[DMX7]

I wonder how many people have read any of your 9 consecutive posts on this thread.

[boutons_deux]

Jeb: A 'Multicultural' Society May Lead To 'Re ed' Assimilation



“We should not have a multicultural society,” Bush said. “When you create pockets of isolation, and in some cases, the assimilation process has been re ed, it’s wrong. It limits people’s aspirations.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...+%28TPMNews%29

Like his brother, that man has a way with words. He now seems just stupid, ignorant as his brother.

[boutons_deux]

Fox host corners Bush for giving tax cuts to the 1%: ‘Does Jeb Bush need a $3 million tax cut?’

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/fox-...e+Raw+Story%29

Looks like Ailes isn't backing shrub II

[boutons_deux]

As he campaigns for president, Jeb Bush has eagerly reminded audiences of theGodfather-inspired nickname he earned as Florida’s governor: "They call me Veto Corleone because I vetoed 2,500 separate line items in the budget,"

Mother Jones compiled a list of the governor's 2,549 line-item vetoes, accounting for $1.88 billion in spending cuts between 1999 and 2007. Bush cut approximately $100 million for educational projects; $97 million for health care and mental health-related projects; $24 million for emergency preparedness, mainly for shelters and backup generators; $24 million for cancer and Alzheimer's research and treatment; $15 million for children's services, largely related to health care; $11 million for police and fire departments; and $10 million for drug treatment programs.

Bush set a new line-item veto record, cutting $350 million—a total he would surpass in 2006, his final year in office. Among the vetoed items was nearly $21 million for the state's 20 trauma centers. Unlike regular emergency rooms, trauma centers—which treat the direst injuries, often the result of car crashes and gunshot wounds—run budget deficits due to the cost of high-tech equipment and maintaining a specialized team of doctors on call throughout the night. By 2004, the state's trauma centers were deep in the red, and at least two were threatening to shut their doors if the state didn't help cover their costs.

Bush's political opponents often saw his vetoes as a power play by a strong executive without respect for the legislative process—or, worse, as a means of punishing lawmakers who crossed him. "There was probably a lot of stuff that needed to be vetoed," says Gelber, "but not all of his vetoes were high minded, and sometimes they were downright vindictive."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/jeb-bush-veto-record-florida

[TeyshaBlue]

I wonder how many people have read any of your 9 consecutive posts on this thread.

1

[boutons_deux]

1

the less, racist, snark King TB , the most reliable stalker of The Great Bouton's threads and posts.

[DMX7]

The Great Bouton? Is that what you call yourself?

[TeyshaBlue]

the less, racist, snark King TB , the most reliable stalker of The Great Bouton's threads and posts.

The Great Mocker. Get it right nut.

[TeyshaBlue]

The Great Bouton? Is that what you call yourself?

Weird, huh?

Fits the whole self-affirmation routine he runs here daily.

[TeyshaBlue]

Btw...GFY Right wingnut.

[boutons_deux]

George W. Bush Enjoying New Status as Smarter Bush



DALLAS — After years of being subjected to unfair ridicule, former President George W. Bush is now enjoying his newfound status as the smarter of the two Bush brothers to have achieved elected office.

Speaking to reporters at his home in Dallas, Bush said he was deriving “quiet satisfaction” from a new poll showing that ninety-one per cent of the American people now consider him the smarter Bush.

“I know that no one’s saying I’m a genius,” he said, modestly. “But I look pretty good when I’m graded on a curve.”

Bush pointed with particular pride to the fact that seventy-four per cent of those polled said that, of the two Bush brothers, he had a “far superior command of the English language.”

“When I was President, I got a lot of grief from people who didn’t think my English was too good,” he said. “I think now they’re realizing it could have been worser.”

The former President said that he hoped the American people’s view of him as the smarter Bush would soon be shared by his parents, George and Barbara Bush.

“At Thanksgiving, Mom and Dad would never let me carve the turkey because they thought I’d screw it up somehow,” he said. “Something tells me I’ll be carving that turkey this year.”

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borow...NzgwNzUzODE0S0

[boutons_deux]

Jeb Bush Would Not Reauthorize the Voting Rights Act


Republican candidate thinks the law that his brother signed is no longer relevant.


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...ing-rights-act

[boutons_deux]

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

“Obviously al Qaeda was responsible for the terrorist attacks of 9/11,” the CNN host pressed. “But how do you respond to critics who ask if your brother and his administration bear no responsibility at all, how do you then make the jump that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are responsible for what happened at Benghazi?”
Bush stammered in response: “Well, I — the question on Benghazi, which we will now finally get the truth to, is was the place secure? They had a responsibility at the Department of State to have proper security.”

“And how was the response in the aftermath of the attack?” he continued. “Was there a chance that these four American lives could have been saved? That’s what the investigation is about, it’s not a political issue… Were we doing the job of protecting our embassies and our consulates, and during the period, those hours after the attacks started, could they have been saved?”

“That’s kind of proving the point of the critics,” Tapper noted. “You don’t want you brother to bear responsibility for 9/11 — and I understand that argument and al Qaeda is responsible — but why are the terrorists not the ones that are responsible for these attacks in Libya?”

“They are!” Bush replied. “But if the ambassador was asking for additional security and they didn’t get it, that’s a proper point. And if it’s proven that the security was adequate compared to other embassies, then fine, we’ll move on.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/cnn-...e+Raw+Story%29

The US Benghazi wasn't an embassy, was not even recognized by the Libyan "govt" as a US "diplomatic" installation.

And of course the Repugs DENIED FUNDING to State dept for increasing diplomatic security. Austerity rules, and solves nothing.

[TeyshaBlue]

[boutons_deux]

Jeb! is firing staff, he's finished

3 Reasons Republicans Must Pull The Plug On Jeb If They Want To Stop Trump

1. Jeb Bush can’t beat Donald Trump.

Jeb has been unable to show any true vigor or backbone against The Donald: sitting there uncomfortably as Trump insults him, attacks his wife, and is now taking on his brother. And even Republican voters don’t seem to want Jeb around anymore.

A recent national survey from Democratic-aligned firm Public Policy Polling showed Trump in first place among Republicans with 27 percent, way ahead of his closest compe or Ben Carson with only 17 percent, then Marco Rubio with 13 percent, and Jeb at 12 percent.

But in a specially tested two-way matchup, not only did Trump lead Bush — it wasn’t even remotely close: The Donald at 56 percent, Jeb at 36 percent.

By itself, Jeb being unable to beat Trump would be reason enough for GOPers who really want to stop The Donald to take some action. But it actually gets much, much worse than that.

2. As long as Jeb stays in, he sucks up time, money, attention, and resources that could go to another contender.

That survey from PPP mentioned above also tested several other two-way match-ups, with interesting results: Carson led Jeb, 52 percent to 41 percent; Carly Fiorina edged him out, 47 percent to 45 percent; and Rubio — perhaps the establishment’s last, best hope — was also ahead, 50 percent to 43 percent.

But how is Rubio doing? As a recent report in Politico showed, his campaign his flatlining from a lack of money and on-the-ground organization in the early primary states:

For all the recent buzz surrounding his candidacy — fueled by strong debate performances —Rubio isn’t raising enough money to keep pace with his rivals in the top tier and he’s running out of time to assemble a robust field organization.

“If Trump-mania subsides, you’ve got to have a mechanism and a structure,” said Chip Felkel, a South Carolina Republican strategist who isn’t affiliated with any campaign. “I think you’re being risky if you don’t put a structure in place.”

And for Rubio or any other candidate, they won’t be able to build up the money, organization, or media attention necessary to bring down The Donald — as long as Jeb is still in the way.
This also relates somewhat to my final point…

3. As long as Jeb Bush is in the race, Donald Trump has his favorite punching bag to knock around.

I have previously argued that Trump is a lot like a monkey who walks into a new troop, and then immediately punches the biggest other monkey there in order to become the new reigning alpha-male. From the moment The Donald entered this campaign, he’s been attacking the onetime frontrunner Jeb mercilessly, in ways that other candidates seemed too shy to even attempt.
Jeb didn’t fight back — perhaps wanting to remain above the fray. But instead, he has only succeeded in surrendering his position at the top of the pack. And any attempts to regain it have only resulted in Trump knocking him right back down again.

And now, to follow this simian analogy to its proper conclusion, whenever Trump might be in any trouble he can simply start whaling away at Jeb again. It amounts to a new display of pack dominance that not only keeps his followers on his side — but the constant demonstration of strength and lack of any fear might very well attract more voters to his banner.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/3-reason..._frequency_six

[DMX7]

^LOL, that's an incredibly primal analysis.

[boutons_deux]

^LOL, that's an incredibly primal analysis.

anything specific, or just your knee jerking?