Sunday, October 4, 2015

Hey Jeb! What Ya Been Doin'?

                                                       
   Image result for jeb bush and george w. bush

                                                       Jeb and George W.

Jeb Bush, of the Bush family dynasty, was Governor of Florida from 1999 until the beginning of 2007. Until he declared his intention to run for President in 2016, he has spent nine years out of the public spotlight, by and large. How is it, I wondered, that an ex-Governor, out of the public eye for so long, could just up and declare his candidacy for President and have any sort of realistic chance? Was the Bush name alone just political gold?

So, I did a deep dive and began my research on what ol' Jeb was up to in the intervening years. And whenever I need to do a deep dive of research, I fire up the ol' Wikipedia.

It seems that Jeb had the good fortune and luck to have his term end just before the Financial Collapse of 2008. The pain of his state's residents can be pawned off on his hapless successor. 

He joined various corporate boards as well. He earned around $14.5 million dollars from Wall Street banks and companies. He collected two million from a health care company that made over $100 million from the Affordable Care Act enactment, as of 2014. Though he publicly opposed the ACA, for Tenet Healthcare, he had no trouble accepting those revenues by way of the ACA. Quite Machiavellian of him, wouldn't you say? Oh, and hypocritical too. 

Even better, he joined the infamous Lehman Brothers as an adviser, just before they imploded and almost took down the world's financial system with it. Oddly enough, no taint remains on him. Funny, ain't it?

Maybe it is just the golden Bush name after all. It certainly can't be his good works after leaving office, because, clearly, it was all just cynical and self serving money grabbing. 

We'll have to count on the Donald Trumps and Ben Carsons of the world to keep corporate puppets like Jeb pushed back on their heels for as long as possible. If Bush, or any of these other stooges were to actually get in, it would be time to head for the hills. 

But that's what everyone said back when George W. was running. 

Hoo boy. 




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