'As crunch time nears, the reserved Jeb Bush flashes emotions' or, What. A. Crock.

[seafan]

From AP via YahooNews, January 9, 2016:

First, Jeb uses Noelle as a convenient political tool.

Bush's elaboration about the ordeal that he says put his family "through hell" came as the one-time front-runner showed renewed confidence campaigning in New Hampshire.

He was talking about his daughter, Noelle, who was arrested in 2002, accused of trying to fill a fraudulent prescription for Xanax, a powerful anti-anxiety medication. The arrest was a public spectacle for Bush, then a first-term governor of Florida planning to seek re-election.

.....

With his daughter's ordeal long past, Bush said he called Noelle this week to seek her permission to discuss its impact on him. Though the wonkish Bush made certain to point out the drug treatment policy enacted during his tenure as governor, he also said the public exposure enlightened him about the plight of others.

No he didn't.

From the WaPo, January 5, 2016:

Bush said Tuesday night that he gave his daughter advanced warning of his plans to talk about her struggle.

"I didn’t ask – I told her I was going to do it and I asked her if it was okay and I knew she was going to say yes because we’ve talked about it," he told reporters. "Not in an overt way, but it just dawned on me that this event was likely to be a place where I was to talk about this...."

Now, THAT sounds more like the hard-charging Jeb Bush we know. He will always do it HIS way. Sorry, Noelle, after his terse insistence for family privacy years ago, that your father would now unilaterally decide to expose your pain to kickstart his flailing campaign.


Then, he throws single mothers under the bus. Again.

And while Bush shares little about his life in a dynastic Republican family, he has become more passionate with the anecdotes he shares about his time as governor.

Speaking in Dover, he shook his head in frustration discussing the plight of single mothers in Florida when he became governor. "It's not a pretty one," he said grimly.

He must have forgotten his tirade of public shaming of single mothers when he was governor. It wasn't pretty.

Jeb Bush is a compassionless conservative: His “Scarlet Letter” law was even worse than it sounds, June 10, 2015

Even in 1994 before he was governor, he was yapping at single mothers to "go find a husband".

Very ugly, Jeb.


Then, he throws public school students under the bus. Again.

In Peterborough, he held a clenched fist to his chest as he described a high school senior's struggle with basic math on a graduation test prior to education policy changes he enacted. "I cannot tell you how that angered me," he said.

No, Jeb, you are angry because you failed to get your way with privatizing education in Florida and across the country. THIS is something Floridians are still massively angry about:

Once again, Jeb Bush's legacy of educational failure slaps Florida in the face.


Then, he struts around as the holier-than-thou hypocrite he is.

Bush, who often discusses action he took improving care for Florida's disabled, lashed out at Trump for mocking a New York Times reporter who is disabled during a campaign event last year.

"When anybody — anybody — disparages people with disabilities, it sets me off," Bush said. "At what point do we say, enough of this!"

We've been asking that question about you for years now.

When Jeb Bush speaks, people cringe

"It looks like the people of San Francisco are an endangered species, which may not be a bad thing," Bush said during the meeting Wednesday. "That's probably good news for the country.", Jeb Bush, November 13, 2003 (AP story)

Bush has been amused by California before. In mid-August, the topic was Gary Coleman, the former child actor who jumped into the California gubernatorial recall race.

"I'm glad that Gary Coleman lives in California," Bush said. "A guy like me that believes in limited government probably would have a tough time against a fellow like that because he probably symbolizes smaller government."

Coleman took the comment in stride.

"I don't know about Jeb Bush," he said. "But if I become governor, I will represent the little guys, the people that big people tend to step on when they want to get somewhere."


AP, November 13, 2003

Oct 5, 2002 | Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, running for reelection in November, has a habit of getting himself in trouble when making statements in front of reporters -- particularly ones he doesn't know are there.

Bush's latest gaffe comes on the heels of the first arrests in the tragic Rilya Wilson case. The child, who turned 6 last month, has been missing from state custody for more than a year, having last been seen at the home of her guardian Geralyn Graham. Graham, who has a long rap sheet for fraud and more than 40 aliases, says a worker from the state's Department of Children and Families picked up the little girl from her home and never returned with her. She and her sister Pamela Graham claimed to be the child's maternal grandmother and grand-aunt, respectively, but turned out to be acquaintances of Rilya's mother. They're now under arrest, along with two of Geralyn Graham's grown children, for allegedly obtaining more than $14,000 worth of state assistance for the girl after she went missing.

News of their arrest prompted Bush to tantalize GOP lawmakers at a Wednesday meeting with what he called "juicy details" about the women -- who he implied were not sisters at all, but rather a lesbian couple.

"As was being arrested," Bush told the Panhandle lawmakers, "she told her co-workers, 'Tell my wife I've been arrested.' The wife is the grandmother, and the aunt is the husband." Bush added gestures, using his fingers to make quotation marks as he emphasized the word "grandmother."

"Bet you don't get that in Pensacola," Bush added for flourish, apparently not realizing that a reporter with Gannett Regional Newspapers of Florida was in the room. His comments were first reported in Wednesday's editions of the Pensacola News-Journal, and soon made the rounds of media across the state.

On Thursday, Joshua Fisher, Pamela Graham's attorney, called the governor's comments "outrageous" and "disgusting."

"He's making jokes when there is still a missing baby here, or doesn't he care?" Fisher said.

Bush's people called his latest gaffe a "nonevent," but it quickly drew the fire of the state's largest gay-and-lesbian advocacy group, Equity Florida, whose executive director, Nadine Smith, called Bush's remarks "childish" and "locker room homophobia." And a spokesman for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill McBride remarked that "Floridians would be concerned that Jeb Bush has a different message behind closed doors than what he does in public."

So, Jeb, at the end of this very busy week for you, when you say,

"When anybody — anybody — disparages people with disabilities, it sets me off," Bush said. "At what point do we say, enough of this!"

That point is now. We have had enough of you, your family's toxic destructiveness and your mewling hypocrisy.

At long last, it is time for you and the rest of your family to get out of our way. Be gone.

We've got a country, a reputation and people's lives to rebuild.

[grasswire]

1. good research

thanks

[Hekate]

2. OTOH, Gov. Christie sounded 100% genuine talking about addiction

I'm not sure how to find it, but it was posted here. Someone will have the link -- I tried on YouTube, and actually he has talked about this issue a number of times.

In the link that was posted here, he talked about addiction as an illness, he talked about living with his mother who started smoking at 16, and how she struggled and struggled over her lifetime to kick what we now know is an addiction. He said when people show up with cancer from smoking, they don't get turned away from treatment, they don't get told it's all their own fault and get prosecuted by law.

He talked about his best friend from law school, brilliant, successful. Injured, prescribed Percocet. Finally died of his addiction and suicide after losing everything.

Addiction is a disease. Chris Christie absolutely gets that, and I was blown away that this venal corrupt New Jersey politician has a heart that encompasses that knowledge, that takes his personal experience and expands it outward to the rest of society.

I doubt Jeb can do that. It's really hard to know what goes on in that man's head, because he is being drowned out by everyone else in an exceptionally corrosive campaign season. But, as Justice O'Connor said about his brother W, I know his family. She took that to mean, when she was hearing Bush v. Gore, that W wouldn't be a bad president.

I take it entirely the opposite -- if anyone in that family has an ounce of empathy and compassion in their beautiful minds for anyone else who isn't a Bush, I'd be awfully surprised. When he finally does speak, he will not sound genuine. In his own way he is as corrupt as Chris Christie -- having given enabled his brother to cheat his way to the White House -- but he lacks Christie's ability to convey as much humanity.

[saltpoint]

3. Seafan, it's a very good thing that you

post these points which offer a far darker profile of Jeb's administration in Florida than we are ever likely to get from mainstream media.

It's also a bit unsettling that the far Right rejects Jeb because he is not vitriolic and bigoted enough to suit their firebrand tastes in public servants, while progressives feel that although Jeb's milquetoast demeanor implies moderation, his actual record of governing says oligarchy, and their rejection is just as fierce.