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seafan
seafan's Journal
seafan's Journal
December 31, 2015
Love it, Miles Archer.
Made me guffaw! Please follow your heart in 2016, and get to writing your book. The pen is mightier than the sword.
Happy New Year to you.
December 29, 2015
(viaPolitico)
Who's yer daddy, Jeb?
Johnny Louis via Getty Images (via HuffPO)
It just writes itself.
Jeb! wants to go mano a mano with Trump? Snort.
Just like his big brother, wantin' to go mano a mano with Poppy.(viaPolitico)
Who's yer daddy, Jeb?
Johnny Louis via Getty Images (via HuffPO)
It just writes itself.
December 29, 2015
(This is a long piece, so I will try to condense much of it below.)
The New Yorker article lays out the details of the protracted fight former Governor Jeb Bush waged over water pollution laws affecting the Everglades. The acting US Attorney from Florida, in 1988, bravely brought a lawsuit against the state of Florida's regulatory agency tasked to enforce clean-water laws, saying that it had failed to enforce those laws, after decades of clearing of land and diverting water flow for agricultural purposes had so destroyed the habitat of many endangered animal species, and severely diminished their numbers. Lawyers for the State of Florida, fought the suit for nearly three years.
It was then that the newly elected Governor Lawton Chiles, in 1991, broke the legal impasse. (RIP Governor, we miss you dearly.) Governor Chiles then took the lead in steering the Florida legislature in 1994 to pass the Everglades Forever Act, which committed the state to reach the clean-water standards set in the consent decree. The federal/state partnership to provide the money to protect the Everglades would then be preserved.
Enter one Jeb Bush into this equation, in 1994, in his first and failed attempt at a run for governor against Governor Chiles. In 1998, Bush finally muscled his way into the governor's office.
Florida's jewel of the Everglades has been on Jeb Bush's chopping block ever since.
In 2003, just into Bush's second term, a mystery bill popped up in the Florida legislature. It would amend the Everglades Forever Act by pushing back the deadlines for meeting phosphorous pollution levels for 10 additional years (from 2006), and additional delays in deadline dates after that, effectively unleashing polluters to have at the Everglades for years to come.
Enter the Sugar Barons.
Whatever the Fanjul family's sugar empire wanted from Jeb Bush, they got. And they also want things from Rubio.
Jeb was summoned to Washington in 2003 to defend his decision to dismantle the agreement between the federal government and Florida via this new law he was about to sign. His Republican cohorts in Congress did not take it well, warning him starkly that his new legislation could destroy the Everglades funding agreement between the federal government and the state of Florida. But Jeb was having none of it. He was going to weaken Everglades protection. Jeb Bush was determined that his friends, the Big Sugar barons, would win. It made no difference to him that editorial boards around Florida condemned the new legislation as a luscious gift to Florida Crystals, U.S. Sugar, and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative, collectively referred to as "Big Sugar".
And when William Hoeveler, an eighty-year-old senior judge in the Southern District of Florida, released a court order, 'arguing that the law not only potentially violated the consent decree but had been passed in a shamelessly undemocratic way', Jeb Bush and his benefactors ruthlessly pushed to remove the judge from the case. Bush was quoted in this article, saying of the court order, “It is quite an unusual legal statement,” “It didn’t have a lot of law in it.”
Bush then promptly signed the controversial legislation, then blanketed op-ed pages with terse defensiveness of his actions.
Two groups sued in 2004, to stop Bush's legislation from being implemented--- Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Native Americans, who live in the Everglades.
In 2008, U.S. District Judge Alan Gold sided with these groups, and found that the Florida legislature had “violated its fundamental commitment and promise to protect the Everglades.” Since 2012, new efforts have been undertaken to resume protection of the River of Grass.
And the goal of We The People is to ensure that Jeb Bush will never finger the desk in the Oval Office.
Do we suppose that the mainstream media will ever publicly question Jeb Bush about any of this? Oddly, he speaks very little of his record on the environment.
Jeb Bush's war on Everglades preservation rips open old wounds
Jeb Bush speaks very little of his record on the environment as governor.
The New Yorker, January 4, 2016 Issue
Credit Illustration by Barry Blitt (Via The New Yorker)
What lingers in Florida is the memory of a governor who liked to announce “big, hairy, audacious goals”—often shortened to BHAG, pronounced “bee-hag”—and to pursue them zealously. Much of the time, in a state with natural bipartisan coalitions, it worked. But when it didn’t Bush pushed on, even at the price of gruelling (sic) and expensive political conflict. Nowhere was his style more evident than in his protracted struggle with the federal government over the fate of the Everglades—a fight that, according to people in both parties, could well have been avoided with a less autocratic approach. Nathaniel Reed, an Assistant Secretary of the Interior in the Nixon Administration, a friend of President George H. W. Bush, and a prominent Florida environmental activist, told me, “Jeb wouldn’t listen to anyone. He’s the most thin-skinned son of a bitch I’ve seen. If you criticize him, he never forgets it.”
(This is a long piece, so I will try to condense much of it below.)
The New Yorker article lays out the details of the protracted fight former Governor Jeb Bush waged over water pollution laws affecting the Everglades. The acting US Attorney from Florida, in 1988, bravely brought a lawsuit against the state of Florida's regulatory agency tasked to enforce clean-water laws, saying that it had failed to enforce those laws, after decades of clearing of land and diverting water flow for agricultural purposes had so destroyed the habitat of many endangered animal species, and severely diminished their numbers. Lawyers for the State of Florida, fought the suit for nearly three years.
It was then that the newly elected Governor Lawton Chiles, in 1991, broke the legal impasse. (RIP Governor, we miss you dearly.) Governor Chiles then took the lead in steering the Florida legislature in 1994 to pass the Everglades Forever Act, which committed the state to reach the clean-water standards set in the consent decree. The federal/state partnership to provide the money to protect the Everglades would then be preserved.
Enter one Jeb Bush into this equation, in 1994, in his first and failed attempt at a run for governor against Governor Chiles. In 1998, Bush finally muscled his way into the governor's office.
Florida's jewel of the Everglades has been on Jeb Bush's chopping block ever since.
In 2003, just into Bush's second term, a mystery bill popped up in the Florida legislature. It would amend the Everglades Forever Act by pushing back the deadlines for meeting phosphorous pollution levels for 10 additional years (from 2006), and additional delays in deadline dates after that, effectively unleashing polluters to have at the Everglades for years to come.
Enter the Sugar Barons.
Whatever the Fanjul family's sugar empire wanted from Jeb Bush, they got. And they also want things from Rubio.
Jeb was summoned to Washington in 2003 to defend his decision to dismantle the agreement between the federal government and Florida via this new law he was about to sign. His Republican cohorts in Congress did not take it well, warning him starkly that his new legislation could destroy the Everglades funding agreement between the federal government and the state of Florida. But Jeb was having none of it. He was going to weaken Everglades protection. Jeb Bush was determined that his friends, the Big Sugar barons, would win. It made no difference to him that editorial boards around Florida condemned the new legislation as a luscious gift to Florida Crystals, U.S. Sugar, and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative, collectively referred to as "Big Sugar".
According to two congressional staffers who attended the meeting, Bush made it clear that he had already decided. “He wasn’t really tolerating any sort of questions,” a former aide said. When the congressmen told Bush that he could be allowing an amount of pollution that would continue to harm the Everglades, he angrily dismissed their concerns. The other staff member said, “I served in government for thirty-four years, twenty on the Appropriations Committee, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone act like that. Bush was angry. He was in my face. He slapped us around. He had absolutely no thought about compromising. I remember thinking, If this guy becomes President, this is not going to work.”
And when William Hoeveler, an eighty-year-old senior judge in the Southern District of Florida, released a court order, 'arguing that the law not only potentially violated the consent decree but had been passed in a shamelessly undemocratic way', Jeb Bush and his benefactors ruthlessly pushed to remove the judge from the case. Bush was quoted in this article, saying of the court order, “It is quite an unusual legal statement,” “It didn’t have a lot of law in it.”
Bush then promptly signed the controversial legislation, then blanketed op-ed pages with terse defensiveness of his actions.
Federal officials say that the new law had been approved in a politically charged atmosphere. Harvey, the E.P.A.’s chief regulator in South Florida, said that when he raised objections he was ignored. Developers seeking permits to build on environmentally sensitive land, he said, were told to bypass him and go to E.P.A. officials in Atlanta, who were appointed by the White House. “You had a Bush in Washington and a Bush in Florida, and together they felt like they could do whatever they wanted,” Harvey said. Salt said that he and his colleagues were ordered not to speak publicly without approval from the Secretary of the Interior. “They absolutely shut us down,” Salt said. “I felt like I was getting squished.”
Two groups sued in 2004, to stop Bush's legislation from being implemented--- Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Native Americans, who live in the Everglades.
In 2008, U.S. District Judge Alan Gold sided with these groups, and found that the Florida legislature had “violated its fundamental commitment and promise to protect the Everglades.” Since 2012, new efforts have been undertaken to resume protection of the River of Grass.
But federal and state officials of both parties look back on Bush’s administration as a time of stalemate and lost opportunity, largely because Bush derailed the effort to clean up the water in the Everglades for nearly a decade. Under the settlement that resolved the long dispute, the clean-water standard will not need to be met until 2025. The cost of the restoration will be borne primarily by taxpayers, not by the sugar industry. “The goal of Big Sugar is always to put off the day of reckoning,” Draper said.
And the goal of We The People is to ensure that Jeb Bush will never finger the desk in the Oval Office.
Do we suppose that the mainstream media will ever publicly question Jeb Bush about any of this? Oddly, he speaks very little of his record on the environment.
December 28, 2015
We were watching this unfold at the time as well. But, at some point, the surrogates are going to turn against their domineering overlord.
There is absolutely so much baggage on this guy--- heavy, low-hanging fruit, cracked and swollen and riddled with mold, and yet the national media step all over themselves to avoid talking about any of it. Another reason why people distrust and despise major media.
The Establishment will attempt to force this charlatan into ultimate power.
We all have to be sand in the gears of The Machine now.
Jeb Bush has "The Help" do his dirty work.
A very astute point, DonCoquixote.
Above all, Jeb Bush wants to keep his hands clean. He learned that from Poppy.
This is from April 9, 2010, (having left the governor's office in early 2007):
.....
Bush is advancing his conservative agenda in the Legislature and influencing the Senate race without coming out of the shadows. He has tremendous clout and no accountability. He makes tons of money, travels the world and answers to no one.
Less than two years ago, Bush declined Times' staff writer Sydney P. Freedberg's request for an interview by claiming he was "trying hard to stay out of the public eye to let my successor do his thing.''
Now he's more like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books. You can feel his presence in the room, his surrogates are doing the dirty work and he still finds ways to leave his own mark.
.....
In Tallahassee, the Republican-led Legislature has rammed through a sweeping education bill that abolishes tenure for new public school teachers and ties teacher raises to high-stakes testing. It has Bush written all over it, yet he never appeared in the Capitol. His close ally, Sen. John Thrasher of St. Augustine, sponsored the legislation. The executive director at Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future, Patricia Levesque, testified before committees and knows the bill better than most lawmakers. The foundation aired an ad promoting the legislation, and Bush urged his supporters to embrace it as teachers fought back.
"I talked to Jeb this morning,'' Thrasher told reporters the morning after the Senate passed the bill. "He was very pleased with what we did. Very pleased.''
Bush is advancing his conservative agenda in the Legislature and influencing the Senate race without coming out of the shadows. He has tremendous clout and no accountability. He makes tons of money, travels the world and answers to no one.
Less than two years ago, Bush declined Times' staff writer Sydney P. Freedberg's request for an interview by claiming he was "trying hard to stay out of the public eye to let my successor do his thing.''
Now he's more like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books. You can feel his presence in the room, his surrogates are doing the dirty work and he still finds ways to leave his own mark.
.....
In Tallahassee, the Republican-led Legislature has rammed through a sweeping education bill that abolishes tenure for new public school teachers and ties teacher raises to high-stakes testing. It has Bush written all over it, yet he never appeared in the Capitol. His close ally, Sen. John Thrasher of St. Augustine, sponsored the legislation. The executive director at Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future, Patricia Levesque, testified before committees and knows the bill better than most lawmakers. The foundation aired an ad promoting the legislation, and Bush urged his supporters to embrace it as teachers fought back.
"I talked to Jeb this morning,'' Thrasher told reporters the morning after the Senate passed the bill. "He was very pleased with what we did. Very pleased.''
We were watching this unfold at the time as well. But, at some point, the surrogates are going to turn against their domineering overlord.
There is absolutely so much baggage on this guy--- heavy, low-hanging fruit, cracked and swollen and riddled with mold, and yet the national media step all over themselves to avoid talking about any of it. Another reason why people distrust and despise major media.
The Establishment will attempt to force this charlatan into ultimate power.
We all have to be sand in the gears of The Machine now.
December 25, 2015
With a hat tip to EyeOnMiami tonight for this.
So many things to think about in the upcoming years.
May the animals be always with us in our journey.
A Christmas message for us all
With a hat tip to EyeOnMiami tonight for this.
So many things to think about in the upcoming years.
May the animals be always with us in our journey.
December 23, 2015
The Establishment will attempt to shoehorn Jeb Bush into the nomination.
We can take that one to the credit union.
It's the reason he and his campaign are still saying things like this. And this.
Glad you can see through this guy all the way from Vancouver! And you're right---- our "media" are being paid to ignore the truth on this Bush.
This internet thingy will save us yet.
December 23, 2015
We must strip political power away from all Bushes, both now and forever. Only then will we all have a path to recovery.
There is nothing 'moderate' about Jeb Bush.
He's been hiding under that cynical attempt at manipulating public opinion for decades.
With this ugly combination of arrogance, immense family wealth and an overriding sense of self-importance and fanatical entitlement, we should anticipate the persistence of Jeb Bush until We The People cut off his unrelenting march to power. Until then.
This Family will do anything to cement themselves into permanent power. It's how they operate.
Why will he stay in this "race" is an opinion I have not wavered from:
seafan's opinion: The last thing to "go" for Jeb Bush will be his family-anointed robe of arrogant entitlement. I fully expect him to stay in this mirage of a campaign for the foreseeable future, clinging to the nasty and petulant rage that it is his for the taking. In his rigid mind, he doesn't need any stinking voters to help him. He thinks he will take the spoils after the others drop out, based on his family name and money connections.
He spent many of his days in the Florida governor's office taking voting rights away from people. We are totally superfluous in his mind. The whole exercise with his $100+ million SuperPAC, aside from its "Shock and Awe" strategy, was to severely curtail face time with voters on the campaign trail by waiting months and months to "declare" he was running. All of that "if I decide" spiel was a lie. He has shown again and again that he despises people, most especially those who "aren't useful" to his grand plans.
Saying he would have invaded Iraq anyway; saying that people 'need to work longer hours'; saying that women's health programs don't need their allotted funding; saying that Medicare needs to be phased out; saying that "stuff happens" when murderers rampage with guns; saying that we should raise the Social Security retirement age; saying that single moms should 'find a husband'; saying that wide swaths of people should have no voting rights;
for vilifying Michael Schiavo after the death of his long-incapacitated wife; for his role in the installment of his brother into the White House in 2000.... Jeb Bush has telegraphed for years what kind of person he is.
Jeb Bush, for his history, should be condemned from all political capacity in the future.
He thought he could cakewalk into this nomination, based on his family name and connections. It's how he has conducted his entire adult life, and most especially, since carpetbagging into Florida in 1980. When you have watched this play out for the past 35 years in Florida, there is no surprise that he finally cannot hide his carefully shrouded character any longer. That it took this long has been excruciatingly painful. But it has happened.
He represents the very worst for the good people of this country. For people outside of Florida, finally, to see this is tremendously empowering for our country.
Jeb Bush is naked. And he is no emperor.
He spent many of his days in the Florida governor's office taking voting rights away from people. We are totally superfluous in his mind. The whole exercise with his $100+ million SuperPAC, aside from its "Shock and Awe" strategy, was to severely curtail face time with voters on the campaign trail by waiting months and months to "declare" he was running. All of that "if I decide" spiel was a lie. He has shown again and again that he despises people, most especially those who "aren't useful" to his grand plans.
Saying he would have invaded Iraq anyway; saying that people 'need to work longer hours'; saying that women's health programs don't need their allotted funding; saying that Medicare needs to be phased out; saying that "stuff happens" when murderers rampage with guns; saying that we should raise the Social Security retirement age; saying that single moms should 'find a husband'; saying that wide swaths of people should have no voting rights;
for vilifying Michael Schiavo after the death of his long-incapacitated wife; for his role in the installment of his brother into the White House in 2000.... Jeb Bush has telegraphed for years what kind of person he is.
Jeb Bush, for his history, should be condemned from all political capacity in the future.
He thought he could cakewalk into this nomination, based on his family name and connections. It's how he has conducted his entire adult life, and most especially, since carpetbagging into Florida in 1980. When you have watched this play out for the past 35 years in Florida, there is no surprise that he finally cannot hide his carefully shrouded character any longer. That it took this long has been excruciatingly painful. But it has happened.
He represents the very worst for the good people of this country. For people outside of Florida, finally, to see this is tremendously empowering for our country.
Jeb Bush is naked. And he is no emperor.
We must strip political power away from all Bushes, both now and forever. Only then will we all have a path to recovery.
December 21, 2015
Don't worry, Jeb. You will feel even better back in your new "cottage" in Kennebunkport, with some nice memories of "Mama told me not to run."
By the way, Jeb, remember, you can't insult your way to the presidency.
"I don't respect Vladimir Putin."
Jeb Bush is not a 'nice' person. He is a vindictive, self-entitled, petulant, sore loser. And infinitely unfit to fancy himself as president.
Get off the stage, Bush. You are an insult to our country.
WP: Jeb Bush says he ‘hated’ being the front-runner
This should nauseate his wealthy donors, who have poured millions into this black abyss named Bush, now sitting in fifth place or below in national polling averages.Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush "hated" being the GOP front-runner earlier this year, he says, because of the expectations it set for him and his campaign.
“I hated that," he told John Dickerson on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "I feel much better back here.”
Bush entered the 2016 presidential contest as the presumptive Republican front-runner and the clear establishment favorite in no small part because of his ability to raise enormous sums of money. But his close ties to prominent GOP voices — once seen as a strength — has not helped him in an election year defined by “outsider” candidates who have been propelled by a strong anti-politician sentiment across the country.
.....
“Being the front-runner made me feel like that people are going to begin to say, well, the guy is just dancing right through this. I have to go earn it,” he said. “I have higher expectations on me than people have of me. So, it doesn't bother me a bit that the expectations are high.”
“I hated that," he told John Dickerson on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "I feel much better back here.”
Bush entered the 2016 presidential contest as the presumptive Republican front-runner and the clear establishment favorite in no small part because of his ability to raise enormous sums of money. But his close ties to prominent GOP voices — once seen as a strength — has not helped him in an election year defined by “outsider” candidates who have been propelled by a strong anti-politician sentiment across the country.
.....
“Being the front-runner made me feel like that people are going to begin to say, well, the guy is just dancing right through this. I have to go earn it,” he said. “I have higher expectations on me than people have of me. So, it doesn't bother me a bit that the expectations are high.”
Don't worry, Jeb. You will feel even better back in your new "cottage" in Kennebunkport, with some nice memories of "Mama told me not to run."
By the way, Jeb, remember, you can't insult your way to the presidency.
"I don't respect Vladimir Putin."
Jeb Bush is not a 'nice' person. He is a vindictive, self-entitled, petulant, sore loser. And infinitely unfit to fancy himself as president.
Get off the stage, Bush. You are an insult to our country.
December 15, 2015
Records show Marco Rubio spent thousands with GOP credit card, February 24, 2010
Old thread here, with many article clips saved.
Come to think of it, living off of Other People's Money is an art form with Rubio.
Wonder where and when that trait originated...
Records show Marco Rubio spent thousands with GOP credit card, February 24, 2010
Old thread here, with many article clips saved.
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