Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—the first Republican to declare an official interest in becoming his party's next presidential nominee—was quick to pounce on President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba. "I don’t think we should be negotiating with a repressive regime to make changes in our relations with them until there are substantive changes on the island," he told Miami Herald reporter Marc Caputo Wednesday morning. He posted a longer comment on his Facebook page later Wednesday afternoon, asserting that "the benefactors of President Obama’s ill-advised move will be the heinous Castro brothers who have oppressed the Cuban people for decades."

It's no surprise that Bush pounced to attack the shift in policy. A few weeks ago, Bush said that the current prohibitions on travel and trade are too loose and that the US government should clamp down harder on the Castro regime. "I would argue that instead of lifting the embargo we should consider strengthening it again to put pressure on the Cuban regime," he told a crowd at an event in early December hosted by US Cuba Democracy PAC, a group that favors maintaining the embargo. Bush claimed that efforts to relax travel restrictions under Obama had aided the repressive government. "Would lifting the embargo change the fact that the government receives almost all of the money that comes from these well-intended people that travel to the island?" he asked.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/jeb-bush-said-he-wants-tougher-cuban-embargo

The rationale from some politicians here is "as the Russian economy is tanking it's time to prize the oyster" and get Cuba under the US umbrella... It's also called selling the bearskin before killing the bear...

Jeb Bush issued a statement about the proposed normalization of relations with Cuba:

The Obama Administration’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba is the latest foreign policy misstep by this President, and another dramatic overreach of his executive authority [bold mine-DL]. It undermines America’s credibility and undermines the quest for a free and democratic Cuba.

This would be comical if it were coming from a pundit, but for someone interested in the presidential nomination of his party it is just embarrassing. First of all, the president can’t possibly be exceeding his authority in this case. The president has the authority to suspend or resume relations with other governments. The conduct of diplomatic relations is one of the main responsibilities that the executive has. Restoring diplomatic relations can’t possibly undermine American credibility, unless one defines having credibility as never being able to abandon or alter bad policies. U.S. “credibility” isn’t going to suffer because of this, but Bush’s reputation as a smart policy wonk should.

I don’t think Bush even has a clear idea what he means by this when he invokes U.S. credibility. He just knows that it’s the sort of thing “tough” hawks are supposed to say when presented with something the administration has done. Bush doesn’t elaborate on how having normal relations with a close neighbor will hurt the U.S., and that’s probably because there is nothing he could say to back up this claim. As for “the quest for a free and democratic Cuba,” refusing to engage with the Cuban government for fifty years has done absolutely nothing to help make Cuba more liberal or democratic. Engagement with Cuba may or may not be helpful in this regard, but it certainly can’t do any worse than the uninterrupted record of failure that Bush is defending.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/jeb-bush-defends-our-bankrupt-cuba-policy-to-the-end/

It was the summer of 2002 and Michael Bay had a problem only Jeb Bush could solve. The blockbuster director was in Miami filming Bad Boys II and plotting a high-speed boat chase through the Miami River and Biscayne Bay. Only too late did Bay realize the chase would zoom across the protected habitat of endangered manatees—the ancient, 1,500-pound sea cows that laze about many of Florida's shallow, warm rivers and bays. The state limits boat speeds in those areas to protect the wildlife.

A boat chase at manatee speed simply wouldn't do in a big-budget action film from the man who would later smash box office records with the Transformers series. And the manatees had friends in high places—singer Jimmy Buffett, to be precise, the cofounder of Florida's influential Save the Manatee Club, which was adamantly opposed to the chase scene. But with much at stake for the $60 million production, Bay's crew couldn't afford to let a few old sea cows get in the way of filming. Bay had Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but he needed a higher authority. He needed Bush, then the Republican governor of Florida.

Newly released emails from Bush's gubernatorial stint reveal the likely 2016 presidential contender's effort to help Bay in the battle of the manatees. And according to the emails, his office took steps to ensure that Bay could continue to blow stuff up in the state of Florida even as it tried to balance environmental interests with those of the film industry

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/jeb-bush-michael-bay-bad-boys-manatees

Jeb Bush spoke to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs earlier today. He delivered his speech haltingly at times, occasionally fumbled his lines (saying Iraq when he meant Iran early on), and mostly stuck to safe talking point criticisms of the administration. The more specific he was in the speech, the worse Bush’s arguments were. He made a point of chiding the administration for not pursuing an unrealistic zero-enrichment goal in the negotiations with Iran, and he said he was “eager” to hear Netanyahu’s speech before Congress. He faulted Obama for not being sufficiently supportive of the post-coup dictatorship in Egypt. Later during the Q&A session he seemed to endorse arming Ukraine, and once again denounced the opening to Cuba.

None of those positions really surprised me, but it is telling that the most specific positions he took align him closely with his party’s hard-liners. At least now we can finally dismiss the speculation that he might be some sort of closet realist because he has sometimes consulted with some of his father’s old advisers. Beyond those few specific points, however, the speech involved a lot of generic rhetoric about the importance of “leadership” and the need for growth. Robert Golan-Vilella noticed this:

Jeb done now. Not the worst foreign-policy speech I’ve ever seen, but it was probably one of the emptiest.

— Rob Golan-Vilella (@RGolanVilella) February 18, 2015

read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/jeb-bushs-underwhelming-f...

There is little doubt that Jeb Bush possesses strong credentials for appealing to Hispanic voters.

He speaks fluent Spanish. His wife, Columba Bush, was born in Mexico. For two years in his 20s, he lived in Venezuela, immersing himself in the country’s culture.

Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor and likely presidential candidate, was born in Texas and hails from one of America’s most prominent political dynasties. But on at least one occasion, it appears he got carried away with his appeal to Spanish-speaking voters and claimed he actually was Hispanic.

In a 2009 voter-registration application, obtained from the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, Mr. Bush marked Hispanic in the field labeled “race/ethnicity.”

A Bush spokeswoman could offer no explanation for the characterization. However, Mr. Bush took to Twitter late on Monday morning to call the situation a mistake.

My mistake! Don’t think I’ve fooled anyone! RT @JebBushJr LOL – come on dad, think you checked the wrong box #HonoraryLatino

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) April 6, 2015

Carolina Lopez, deputy supervisor of elections for Miami-Dade, said voters must submit hard copies of applications with a signature before receiving a voter information card confirming their address and polling location. According to the Florida Division of Elections, the application requires an original signature because the voter is swearing or affirming an oath.

Florida law requires that the signature, driver’s license number and social security number be redacted before being publicly released.

While Mr. Bush’s claiming to be Hispanic may have been a careless mistake, confusion over heritage is no laughing matter during a campaign season.

During her Senate campaign in 2012, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was accused of misrepresenting herself as Native American. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has had to explain his birth in Canada.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/04/06/jeb-bush-listed-himself-as-hispanic-on-voter-form/?_r=0

Meanwhile at royalty house:

Other important individuals in the Bush family tree include the Spencer family that produced Diana, Princess of Wales, which makes George W. Bush [and Jeb Bush] a 17th cousin to Prince William of Wales [and Prince Harry].

read more: http://genealogy.about.com/od/presidents/p/george_bush.htm

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He just isn't all that good at this. And he knows it.

There's no other conclusion that you could draw after watching Jeb Bush flail in Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate. Bush looked overmatched and lost — an image made all the worse by the fact that he was positioned on the stage in Boulder, Colo., next to Marco Rubio, his one-time political mentee but now quite clearly his superior in the race.

Bush's attempt to attack Rubio was a metaphor not only for his debate performance but for his campaign. Knowing he needed to land a clean punch on Rubio, Bush piggybacked off a question from the moderators about Rubio's sparse attendance record in the Senate and tried to attack. But Bush doesn't really like attacking. And he backed into it from the start. “Could I bring something up here?” he asked, before somewhat awkwardly and, if I'm being honest, nervously, said this of Rubio: “I expected that he would do constituent service. Which means that he shows up to work.”  Then Bush, in an obviously prepared line, joked that Rubio was following a "French work week." (Ugh. Sad trombone.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/29/the-agony-of-jeb-bush/

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With Hillary Clinton bringing her husband (and 42nd US president) Bill Clinton on the campaign trail with her in New Hampshire, Jeb Bush may soon follow suit with his presidential kin. The former Florida governor appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, and host Brian Kilmeade asked whether he would follow Clinton's lead and recruit his brother, former president George W. Bush, to boost his struggling campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

"Yeah," Bush replied, "it is something to consider. 'Cause he is very popular."

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/01/jeb-bush-may-seek-campaign-boost-popular-brother-george

When a man hoping to be president of the United States can sum up his own country with a photograph of a monogrammed gun and the single-word caption “America”, it may be time for the rest of the world to worry.

Instead they are laughing. Since the Republican nomination hopeful (although not very hopeful) Jeb Bush tweeted a picture of his handgun he has been mocked around the world with images that comically replace that violent symbol with the gentler images that sum up less trigger-happy places – a cup of tea for the UK, a bike for the Netherlands, a curry for Bradford.

The joke’s a bit thin, because what is currently happening in US politics is only funny if you are an alien watching from a spaceship and the fate of the entire planet is just one big laugh to you. For what is Bush trying to achieve with this picture? He’s trying to appeal to the rage and irrationality that have made Donald Trump’s bombastical assault on the White House look increasingly plausible while Bush languishes, a conventional politician swamped by unconventional times.

The centre cannot hold, WB Yeats wrote nearly a century ago, and this photograph shows exactly how off centre things are getting. When Jeb Bush – brother of one warmongering president, son of another, and a governor who sanctioned 21 executions during his tenure in Florida – embodies the centre ground, you know things have got strange. Compared with the strongman politics, explicit bigotry and perversion that a Trump presidency threatens, mere conservatism would be sweet sanity.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/17/jeb-bush-gun-tweet-american-nightmare-gun-republican-trump

Seven years ago, George W Bush left office as one of the most disliked presidents in US history. On Monday night, in a packed convention hall in front of a giant American flag, he returned to the campaign trail for the first time in support of his flagging younger brother Jeb.

For outside observers, having in your corner the president who remains synonymous with “dumb wars” may seem like the kind of support a White House hopeful could do without.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/16/hes-back-george-w-bush-turns-on-the-campaign-trail-charm-to-fight-for-brother-jeb

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