Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

He really is that stupid.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

No one could have predicted…

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Bark louder, little dog.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Schadenfreude Open Thread: Jeb Now Setting Fire to Big Stacks of Cash

Schadenfreude Open Thread: Jeb Now Setting Fire to Big Stacks of Cash

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This would qualify as beating an effectively dead horse, except this is the Bush Crime Clan with its scion on the field, and there’s always the chance that they’ll bribe, steal, or threaten a spot onto the final ballot somehow. Maybe he’ll settle for the VP slot on a Trump ticket and hope the big guy gets indicted for some kind of financial fraud between Cleveland and November? Or agree to understudy Ted Cruz, and then “accidentally” beat him to death in a dark basement, after which every abused campaign volunteer & bored security staffer who witnesses the incident will swear Jeb honestly mistook Cruz for an unusually large poisonous reptile threatening them all?

The Right People are out there doing their best for him, per the Wall Street Journal:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.—Since Jeb Bush signaled a likely presidential bid one year ago, his family’s decades-old network of former ambassadors, cabinet secretaries and Wall Street financiers has been doing what it does best: raising money.

But now, with Mr. Bush lagging behind in the final stretch before Republican votes are cast, hundreds of supporters from his Florida governorship and two family White Houses are trading their checkbooks for comfortable shoes to canvass neighborhoods in the early-balloting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina…

This past weekend, a group of more than 50 Bush alumni, mostly from Florida and Washington, D.C., paid their own way to knock on doors in South Carolina, where Mr. Bush is polling in fifth place with 8.5%, according to the Real Clear Politics average.

The group included longtime Republican operatives who worked for Mr. Bush’s father and had never used voter-targeting software on mobile phones, as well as the younger network of Hispanic professionals cultivated by Mr. Bush’s two sons, George P. and Jeb Jr. Bush. Many are more accustomed to hosting receptions and consulting on policy than the grind of campaign volunteer work…

.

… even though, per the Washington Post, “the biggest donor to Jeb Bush’s super PAC says Bush is ‘not living up to expectations’“. And they’re not sure his handlers, this time, really know what they’re doing…

A prominent donor to Jeb Bush pressed the chief strategist of the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Bush over the group’s negative ads about Senator Marco Rubio during a closed-door meeting in Manhattan on Friday, according to three people familiar with the encounter.

The exchange took place between Barry Volpert of the private equity firm Crestview Partners and the strategist Mike Murphy at a meeting of about 35 donors at the Palace Hotel in Midtown, according to one attendee…

Some donors to the group have questioned the decision to produce and air a 15-minute documentary telling the “the Jeb Bush story” on the New England Sports Network and have privately mocked billboards featuring quotes by Mr. Bush that Right to Rise paid for in Des Moines.

Even Mr. Bush, on a swing through Iowa this week, seemed to question the billboards’ value. “What the hell is that?” Mr. Bush asked, driving past one of the large red billboards, according to a Des Moines Register reporter who was with him at the time. “Is that Right to Rise?”

Super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations, are not permitted to coordinate with candidates’ own campaign staff. (Mr. Volpert does not work for the Bush campaign.) Asked by reporters in Iowa if he thought the group was spending its money wisely, Mr. Bush said, “I don’t know.”…

From the Politico article:

When Jeb Bush announced a record fundraising haul in July, the Florida Republican rewarded major donors with a two-day celebratory retreat at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. They also delivered a message: $114 million was just the beginning of how much cash they would need to win.

Now, seven months later and just 17 days before the first ballots are cast, Bush’s donors are no longer high-fiving or strategizing how to keep funds flowing. Instead, the money spigot is shutting off as the donor class believes it is just a matter of time before the candidate they threw so much money behind drops out of the race.

POLITICO talked to nearly two dozen major donors, and most say they are waiting for what one veteran Republican and former Bush 43 administration appointee described as the “family hall pass” to jump to another campaign after the New Hampshire primary…

“I’m resigned to it being over, frankly. It’s really disappointing,” said one top Bush Wall Street donor. “I’d urge him to get out after New Hampshire if he doesn’t do well, but he probably won’t.”…

“Expectations are not super high [for Bush]. But people are giving him room to try and break out in New Hampshire,” that donor said. “But if it doesn’t happen, pretty much everyone is thinking about the three-way alternative: Trump, Cruz or, gulp, [Hillary] Clinton. There isn’t a sense though that Rubio or Christie have got a much better path than Jeb because they are establishment too.”…

And he’s still out there, dutifully selling, per Bloomberg Politics:

Jeb Bush today doggedly continued pushing his policy-centric campaign to Republican primary voters, providing a sharp counterpoint on a day that Donald Trump accepted endorsements from John Wayne’s daughter and Sarah Palin.

Bush, the son and brother of former presidents, spent Tuesday afternoon talking about plans to boost economic growth and bolster the nation’s global presence during a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. He was publicly thanked by multiple audience members for a “rich, substantive conversation.”…

“Restoring a 21st century vision of America’s leadership in the world is essential, and hopefully the campaign will be a place where this will be discussed from time to time,” Bush said, as several in the crowd laughed. “A girl can dream at least.”…

Even his metaphors are cobwebby and flaccid!

… Bush also made a verbal misstep, referring to Malia Obama, the president’s eldest daughter, as Malayla. It came during an anecdote about his business travels through China in 2013, at a time when Michelle Obama, the president’s wife, canceled a trip to California where she was to have met with with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan.

“Every meeting I had in Beijing started out for the first 10 minutes lambasting me, as an American, about why it was we insulted China,” Bush said. “Am I’m thinking, ‘You know what? It could be Mrs. Obama was worried about the science project of Malayla.’ I mean, we’re different. We don’t think the same way they do.”

Probably just as well not much attention was being paid, because no matter how I try to parse that last paragraph, it seems extremely Old White Guy Explains Stuff He Should Know to Avoid.

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  1. 1.

    joel hanes

    honestly mistook Cruz for an unusually large poisonous reptile threatening them all

    But, but … that’s not a mistake.

    Mr. Cruz is an unusually large poisonous reptile, who threatens us all

  2. 2.

    ruemara

    You know, if he just wants to toss the money, I have some animations and films sitting around not being made. Plus I’d like 2 pairs of sneakers so I don’t wear out my knees on dead sneakers. I could buy sneakers that cost more than $25! Waste money over here! I promise not to laugh at you to your face!

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    Just think what kind of power and prestige Jeb could have gotten in Central America for all that dough.

    He could be running Panama right now.

  6. 6.

    amk

    so donald dreck and other kkklowns bashing china at every turn is not a turnoff for chinese but michelle obama not mooching with chinese premier’s entourage is? jeb is an idjit.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    Jeb Bush suffers humiliation while enticing rich assholes to waste millions and throwing a monkeywrench into GOP establishment plans to stop the short-fingered vulgarian — what’s not to love about this situation?

  9. 9.

    Gemina13

    If Jeb! really wants to give away money, I could use some. $5 million would keep me secure for life.

  10. 10.

    Geoduck

    As Anne said at the start of this, I believe that Jeb! still, still, has a chance at getting the nomination. It’s pretty slim at this point, but despite the poll numbers, better than any of the other non-Trump-or-Cruz-ites.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geoduck: That is the hope the Jebites are bitterly clinging to, and I hope it sustains them until well after Super Tuesday. I don’t think it’s at all likely, but Jeb winning the nomination after a scorched earth battle to the death with Trump would be a dream scenario for the Dems.

  12. 12.

    GregB

    The latest CNN/WMUR poll has Kasich, Christie and Paul tied at fourth place with 6%, 6%, 6% percent each. Coincidence?

  13. 13.

    Keith G

    Somewhere in the above collage I read the phrase, “Viable Trump alternative”. No. Apparently there is not a viable Trump alternative in the race. That is just fiction. Maybe unfortunate fiction, that’s yet to be seen, but fiction nonetheless.

    Well, that’s not exactly correct. Cruz could be an alternative to Trump, but thankfully no one in the GOP except for some of the evangelical grassroots seems to want him anywhere near the White House.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    National Review has devoted an entire issue to trashing Trump. To quote Cole’s tweet on the topic, the contributor list is a Douchebag Who’s Who.

    ETA: A quote from the lead NR editorial: “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”

  16. 16.

    sm*t cl*de

    “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”

    But now we must turn to his negative features.

  17. 17.

    raven

    How does something like “75 MILLION IN STORM”S PATH” creep into our language? All of the sudden every forecast has adopted this dopey ass phrase, I guess it sounds so exciting they can’t resist.

  18. 18.

    David *Born in the USA* Koch

    I don’t think ¿Jeb? raised much money last quarter. The only candidates to release 4th quarter fund raising numbers were Clinton, Sanders, and Cruz. Everyone else declined to release their numbers which means they were bad.

  19. 19.

    Gvg

    I think JEB might be the main reason there is no viable alternative to
    Trump.
    He scared out of even trying anyone with a realistic chance who was establishment.
    His family name is why establishment is so toxic and he and his donors don’t even seem to know it. If he was’t there to remind people, some of them might forget it.

  21. 21.

    Tommy

    Jeb! pouring in millions. A party that can’t seem to like either Trump or Cruz. Going to just listen to some of the Ambient music I bought yesterday and think all is right with the world around me.

  22. 22.

    satby

    @Gvg:

    His family name is why establishment is so toxic and he and his donors don’t even seem to know it

    They live in the alternative universe, the one where his brother was an unsung genius and one of the greatest prezinits evah.

  23. 23.

    David *Born in the USA* Koch

    Notice how Dubya hasn’t shown his face once during this long campaign cycle.

  25. 25.

    Tommy

    On a happy note it was 41 years ago this week, some dude named Dylan dropped Blood on the Tracks. Gave me one of my favorite songs of all time. Tangled Up In Blue.

    From my man Charles Pierce:

    From his roost in Kansas City, Official Blog Musical Archivist Bill Osment reminds us that, 41 years ago this week, The Master dropped a new album on the world. That means that, 41 years ago this week, my pal, Don Walker, who passed away in late 2015, came into the basement offices of the Marquette Tribune singing the chorus to “Tangled Up In Blue,” which I found intriguing. That means that, 41 years ago this week, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment, listening to “Idiot Wind” seven times in a row.

    I would have been seven when that album came out. Parents not listening to Dylan :). But well, Dylan is something if I had a kid I’d force them to listen. Tangled up in blues …..

  29. 29.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Free DVD players? What is this, 2004? I thought giving people “free stuff” is one of the things that makes Obama a bad guy. I guess it’s one of those things that is OK when done by rich white guys when the recipients are also white. Moral hazards only apply to those other folks.

  30. 30.

    raven

    @JPL: I’m on a jihad about this “new” bullshit of citing the supposed number of people in the path of this or that storm.

  31. 31.

    Tommy

    OK that is funny. Thought I’d post a Youtube link to some of the Ambient music I recently bought and just playing on stun in my household. Bought it off of listening to a Pandora channel I got going on. Well it would seem ETs. Beings from another world if I tried to post any link to it. I guess if there are other lifeforms out there I am playing a ballet to them at this moment.

  33. 33.

    Tommy

    @Betty Cracker: Not to get too serious, but I can’t stop thinking of Huey Long and Trump in the same sentence. Most folks only know of Huey as a footnote. But if not assassinated he might have become president of our United States. I recently read parts of his bio and he is Trump. That should scare people to their core!

  39. 39.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @raven: My cable’s out since the guys that painted this place fucked up the connection(I’ll look at it tomorrow), so I’m not seeing the ‘snowpocalypse’ on Joe of the Morining.

    I swear, I’m getting ready to send a bill to the landlord anytime he or his minions do anything around this place. They always, I MEAN ALWAYS, fuck some of MY STUFF up.

  40. 40.

    Mustang Bobby

    @raven: I was going to ETA my previous comment that Huey Long actually got things done for the people of Louisiana but the phone rang and I couldn’t get to the edit in time. No doubt Long had real potential as a dictator, but he did deliver the goods. Trump is all cackle, no eggs.

  44. 44.

    Gimlet

    Jeb’s career is influence peddling.

    Even without the office of President to dole out favors, his supporters can expect to see a return on their investment.

  47. 47.

    Mustang Bobby

    In today’s edition of “Headlines I Didn’t Click On,” David Brooks on “The Anxieties of Impotence.”

    Hint to Bobo: watch late-night TV ads and your worries will be over.

  48. 48.

    Tommy

    @Mustang Bobby: LOL. That is very true. He’d say on the campaign trail as a kid he’d go to church with his Protestant parents and then later hitch up the horse and buggy for his Catholic folks. Asked about it, that he didn’t have any Protestant family members and he was just pandering to them, he said, “we didn’t even have a horse.”

  49. 49.

    Gimlet

    Large establishment GOP factions against both Cruz and Trump. No popular support for Jeb. Who will prevail as the nominee?

  50. 50.

    Baud

    @satby:

    all those people deserve it. The pundit class in DC and NYC don’t deserve to be inconvenienced by a big winter storm… wahhhh!

    This is nothing compared to what they’ll experience when Snowstorm Baud! comes to town in November.

  53. 53.

    Lurking Canadian

    It’s astonishing to me how much rich assholes are prepare to spend in order to ensure their tax rates stay low.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Gimlet:

    They will sit by and let Hillary or Bernie win? Is that the Lose Now to Win Later scenario? I thought that was a credible argument only on our side.

  59. 59.

    Gimlet

    @Baud:

    I’m still looking for that part of the Constitution which gives everybody in authority “Sovereign Immunity” but denies it to MDs, etc.

  60. 60.

    TimJ

    For comparison, total spending by the 6 biggest parties and their candidates in the 2015 UK general election is likely to come in around £60m-70m ($85m to $100m). (It was £45.5m for the 2010 UK election).

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @Gimlet:

    Huh? It’s not a constitutional rule, but sovereign immunity for the government and officials is an ancient legal principle.

  65. 65.

    Gimlet

    @Baud: America broke with monarchs and sovereigns when it set up its independent country. Just to avoid ambiguity there was the CRA after the Civil War.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @Gimlet:

    The etymology of “sovereign” in “sovereign immunity” arises from the days of kings. But today it refers to the government, both national and state.

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh. The kangaroo court in Ferguson MO can’t figure out which way to jump:

    In a case that featured allegations of police brutality, claims of missing evidence and the pitfalls of body cameras, the stage was set for a trial. A flat-screen TV was positioned next to the judge. Three defense attorneys convened at a table. Six activists, charged with various crimes, whispered among themselves. But a key figure, pilloried because of a well-publicized federal report, was missing: Ferguson Prosecutor Stephanie Karr.

    She eventually emerged from behind a wall, laid a slip of paper on the judge’s bench and announced that the charges were being dismissed.

    Hmmmm, why ever for?

    The most serious of the allegations that brought defendants to court on Thursday was an assault charge against Heather De Mian. Last year, she often moved through crowds of protesters in a motorized wheelchair, live streaming events on her cellphone held aloft by a flexible wand. In Ferguson’s version of events, De Mian blinded an officer with a light on her phone and then struck him with it when he tried to push it away, cutting his left thumb. But De Mian, who was born with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder, said officers knocked her out of her chair without provocation. In one video, taken by activists, she is lying on the ground, shouting, “They hit me in the face and knocked my glasses off.”

    Ferguson’s policy calls for all officers to wear functioning body cameras while on duty and to retain the video in criminal cases. Several months ago, the city, in response to a public records request, said it did not have video from the camera worn by the officer who arrested De Mian and accused her of assaulting him. On Thursday, Jeff Small, a city spokesman, said the body cameras Ferguson officers wore at the time, which were donated shortly after Brown’s death on Aug. 9, 2014, had numerous technical problems.

    I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you….

    Khazaeli said he had been to Ferguson’s court roughly 15 times for the case and worked on it for many hours. “I hope that this wasn’t a plan to make us waste our time and hundreds of hours worth of resources,” he said. Khazaeli said the city had given every indication it intended to try the case, filing a brief just a day earlier.

    On Thursday, Karr’s notice that the charges were being dropped was handwritten, and it said the charges could be refiled. “I won’t say for sure that will happen, but that would not be unlikely,” Small said.

    Just fvckin’ with people, because they can.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    When Mitt Romney got his ass handed to him three years ago, I said I was thrilled that someone had finally smacked him in the face with the truth that there are some jobs you can’t buy no matter how rich you are or who your daddy is.

    The Jeb Bush campaign is tripping the same schadenfreude for me.

  73. 73.

    debbie

    @raven:

    Fear! Drama! is the new American way. My local news always starts with “Breaking News!” Sometimes it’s a horrible car accident, sometimes it’s the weather. Doesn’t matter, gotta be Scary!

  74. 74.

    Chris

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Yeah, I agree – the comparison seems quite unfair to Huey Long. (Who, as I understand 1930s Louisiana, was probably the best of a less than ideal batch of options. Also, having some people like him around probably helped make Roosevelt’s New Deal more palatable by comparison, making him kind of the Malcolm X to Roosevelt’s MLK).

  76. 76.

    debbie

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Plus, the music that goes with the “Breaking News!” sounds more like what you’d hear during a car chase on a cop show than anything news related. It’s all I can do to not send a cranky email to them.

  80. 80.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud:

    Fear™ is marketable.

    (Fear™ is a Registered Trademark of the Republican National Committee, All Right Reserved).

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: I decided to take Outhouse’s comment as “Michelle wasn’t elected so she has no official duties and none should be expected of her.” Considering the earlier comment from JEB! about how Michelle dissed the Chinese, it seemed likely.

  89. 89.

    MattF

    Not much to add to the long line of posters pointing and laughing… I’ll just note that Jeb!’s basic problem is that no one wants to vote for him. No amount of money is going to overcome that.

  93. 93.

    danielx

    @raven:

    Hey, when Villagers are threatened with anything, it becomes Very Serious. Maybe Jeb! could toss some money into a few extra snowplows for Fairfax County; that would snag at least a few votes.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    The calm before the storm. Extra blankets, candles? Check. Devices charged? Check. Red wine and lots of good coffee, beans already ground? Check.

    Here’s a kind of extreme “prepping for winter storm in North Dakota with days of no electricity” blogpost. Some of it was quite interesting. Including link to how to make an emergency toilet, with a pool noodle for a seat. Props to her there.

    Common Sense Homesteading: Winter Storm Survival – Keeping Warm When the Power Goes Out

  103. 103.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: Ironically, I have gotten a lot of practice at surviving without modern conveniences since I moved to rural SWMI. The hardest was remembering to lay in jugs of water if any bad weather threatened a power outage because no pump, no water. Tough for the Chicago girl to adjust to.

  104. 104.

    MattF

    @Elizabelle: One of the nice things about the condo building I live in is that we never have significant power outages– here in Bethesda, that’s rare enough to be notable. My neighbors have occasionally taken in refugees from the surrounding suburbs.

    My theory is that it’s location, location, location–we’re a block from the Bethesda metro station and, I’m guessing, connected to the Central Business District electrical grid.

  105. 105.

    Tommy

    I come into my work email and get a client saying this:

    Now to the message – both my sites are down as the hosting ended and I was not able to rescue them before the hosting terminated. Please tell me (1) what to do next and/or (2) what info you need to have in order to know what to do. If you need to know who did the hosting, I do not know, but could find out – possibly.

    My new years resolution was not to hand hold anymore. I literally told her you are fucked. You are also an idiot. Look I’d like her business and I like the lady, but my gosh this new year I am not going to suffer fools lightly. Told her my rates had increased, I got a good memory of her sites, talk to me.

    I’ve done something like this with other clients and funny, it has worked out.

  106. 106.

    Tommy

    @Elizabelle:

    Red wine and lots of good coffee, beans already ground? Check.

    Properties dosh darn it. Good coffee. I wish I could wish an Aeropress on everybody here.

  109. 109.

    Tommy

    @Gin & Tonic: LOL. I recall a fool. Lady next to me had filled every pot in her house with water, including the tub. Handed me her keys and said I didn’t understand. Andrew was coming. I as a Yankee didn’t understand hurricanes in Baton Rouge. I would drink water out of her bathtub and be very thankful for it!

  110. 110.

    Elizabelle

    @MattF: That’s marvelous. Wonder if any of the little eateries around you will open this weekend. (Captive audience.) Although the employees cannot commute in; no Metro.

    Out in the Fairfax County burbs. Our utilities are buried, so we usually do not lose power unless a transformer goes out. Have a gas fireplace and stove, so that’s good.

    @satby: Yes, re water. Got used to stowing extra jugs when lived in California for a few years.

    In process of moving and just gave away my ski bib last week; now thinking “what will I wear if I want to go sledding?” Doesn’t that always happen?

  111. 111.

    Gimlet

    By The Associated Press

    RENTON, WA (AP) –
    Police say they have arrested a man who shot a woman in a movie theater in Renton, left the scene and called 911 to turn himself in.

    Police responded to a shooting call shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday at Regal Cinemas at The Landing.

    Investigators say a man appearing to be intoxicated fumbled with a gun and shot the woman during a showing of the movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”

    Investigators believe the man and woman do not know each other.

    Police say the man left the theater after the shooting, returned to his home and called 911, saying he had dropped his gun and the shooting was accidental.

    Harborview Medical Center spokeswoman Susan Gregg said Thursday night the woman’s condition was upgraded from critical to stable.

  113. 113.

    MattF

    @Elizabelle: The only local restaurant I know of that tries to stay open during snowstorms is Redwood on Bethesda Lane. Not small and not cheap– but they’re probably not trying to make a profit during the storm.

  114. 114.

    ThresherK

    The last time I wanted to pretend I cared about something for a free DVD player I had to sit through a timeshare sales pitch. Still better than Jeb.

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tommy: I’d say that Huey Long was actually less racist than Trump, but, on the other hand, he was willing to make common cause with Father Coughlin. I guess Coughlin’s most explicit antisemitic rants were after Long was assassinated.

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    Mr. Bush said, “I don’t know.”…

    Doesn’t this pretty much cover the entire spectrum?
    The things he seems to not know is the opposite of microscopic.

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