[Sixstrings]

Just another nail in his political coffin.

I agree, that was a big mistake, and I'm surprised he did that.

I think it shows what a bubble he has been in, after all. OTOH -- he is a consistent. Jeb Bush is what he is, a free trading neocon that is pretty consistent on issues.

The things Bernie is consistent about, would be better for me and mine. I'm not a millionaire and don't really know any, well I know one or two. But they can take care of themselves, they don't need me worrying about them.

Keep it up, Jeb. You'll be forgotten soon enough.

He's doing badly in polls, with his base. Like Hillary, he's busy raising billions of dollars right now, from billionaires. So we'll see what happens when he finally declares (he's waiting until the last possible minute, so he can raise as much money from super-rich as he possibly can, something about election laws and disclosure, that's why he's waiting so long).

We'll see what happens when he releases hundreds of millions in campaign ads, and if that can make up the ground he's losing in this primary so far.

It won't be too much longer until the Cheney-era neocons are remembered in the same vane as the Pol Pots and Ghadaffis of the world.

Now I think THAT is not fair to say. Hillary was part of that too.

If you are going to vote Hillary, in the general, then please at least fully own that. I can understand voting for her, for other reasons, just on the chance she may be a little better on working class issues or climate change study cuts etc. -- but morally, one has to own that vote for her, you are voting for an interventionist candidate, on foreign policy.

(p.s. why do I feel like I'm arguing with you? peace sign man, we're on team bernie, same team. That's all that matters.

I'm just going to call foul on it though, since I'm an independent, when people try to say Hillary is some kind of liberal because actually she is not. Her as POTUS will have to be fought by Sen Sanders, and the rest of the democratic wing of the democratic party, every bit as much as they'd have to fight Jeb Bush. I would also worry more that a Hillary may actually just get Republican things rammed through, with a Democratic cover on it, like Obama is doing with the TPP.

Hillary may actually be the one to cut social security.

Can't trust any of these people, but bernie seems a bit of alright.)

[Lore]

Just another nail in his political coffin.

Keep it up, Jeb. You'll be forgotten soon enough. It won't be too much longer until the Cheney-era neocons are remembered in the same vane as the Pol Pots and Ghadaffis of the world. They all did much more harm than good to the world.

Don't forget--- HILLARY VOTED TO AUTHORIZE THE IRAQ WAR.

And then, after she voted for the Iraq war, Hillary voted another 21 times to support and fund more Iraq War.

JEB said a dumb thing. Hillary actually did dumb things---Hillary actually bears some personal responsibility for the Iraq War.

Hillary has since said she was "wrong". Jeb has misquoted her position. Yet, he continues to support his brother's position.

[Plantagenet]

Don't forget--- HILLARY VOTED TO AUTHORIZE THE IRAQ WAR.

And then, after she voted for the Iraq war, Hillary voted another 21 times to support and fund more Iraq War.

JEB said a dumb thing. Hillary actually did dumb things---Hillary actually bears some personal responsibility for the Iraq War.

Hillary has since said she was "wrong".

I guess her vote to go to war in Iraq and her 21 subsequent votes over the following years to support the war and keep the war going are OK then.

[Lore]

Just another nail in his political coffin.

Keep it up, Jeb. You'll be forgotten soon enough. It won't be too much longer until the Cheney-era neocons are remembered in the same vane as the Pol Pots and Ghadaffis of the world. They all did much more harm than good to the world.

Don't forget--- HILLARY VOTED TO AUTHORIZE THE IRAQ WAR.

And then, after she voted for the Iraq war, Hillary voted another 21 times to support and fund more Iraq War.

JEB said a dumb thing. Hillary actually did dumb things---Hillary actually bears some personal responsibility for the Iraq War.

Hillary has since said she was "wrong".

I guess her vote to go to war in Iraq and her 22 subsequent votes to support the war and keep the war going are OK then.

No, but she admits it. Where as just the opposite from the shadow President, Dick, and his minion George and now George's brother sides with him.

[Plantagenet]

...the shadow President......

????



The "Shadow President" is a video game. I hope you haven't confused the imaginary people in video games you play with real people in real life?

Here's the character in the video game



See---the imaginary characters in the video games aren't the same as real people in real life.

CHEERS!

[Lore]

I really do wish Dick was imaginary!

[Sixstrings]

Why don't we actually move beyond Iraq, and talk about the future wars instead.

Do you guys agree with my assessment that hillary is just a bit to the left of a Jeb Bush, and that she is to the right of Obama?

I really think if she had been president, she would have sent rockets to Ukraine. Actually all R's and D's were for that, at one point. I followed this issue closely, and Obama really was isolated in holding off, he was the only one.

Which I criticized, on this forum, at the time. It's actually not an easy call. Here we've got Russia that was doing all it was doing, and we've got this new ally Ukraine, so wtf do you do. If you do nothing, a lot of people die. If you do something, then maybe that just turns into a lot of other somethings and you have another ten year Iraq on your hands -- and a lot of people still die, plus you get the blame for it.

On balance, I have to admit Obama's reticent approach -- on Ukraine -- maybe turned out for the best. Russia was checkmated enough, all they got was Crimea, Kiev never fell and got just enough support, but we didn't wind up in a darn war with frickin' Russia either.

So what do you guys think. You have to accept and realize a President Clinton would have done more on that, she would have sent those shoulder fired rockets, she is definitely far to the right of Obama on neocon stuff.

Obama's policy on Iraq worked out less well -- he really could have kept a residual force there and prevented ISIS to start with, and also prevented Iranians getting too much control over the Iraqi government.

So I give O an A on Ukraine (on balance, judging on where we ended up with his policy) and then a D- on Iraq.

But let's talk about future wars -- Hillary will ALWAYS have a chip on her shoulder, and awareness, that she needs to "look tough." That's partly because she's a woman, and thinks she has to do more so she isn't painted as weak, and it's partly because she's been in political combat for 30 years. And then add to that, her donors are millionaires and billionaires and corps / the MIC, and a lot of them are into foreign policy and want to see intervention and things done.

This election is about the future wars, really, not the old ones -- Hillary's a bit of a hawk, are y'all comfortable with that?

[Pops]

BAU is the US military enforcing "democracy" which allows US based supra-national corporations to invade, call it Corporate Colonialism. That is exactly what happened in Iraq, the oil was "privatized" by the military and put out to bid.

Our militarism will continue just exactly as long as Uncle Sugar is indebted to US based supra-national corps for campaign finance and, more importantly, for post civil service employment (bribery).

Very few mainstream politicians can or will exist outside that system.

[Sixstrings]

BAU is the US military enforcing "democracy" which allows US based supra-national corporations to invade, call it Corporate Colonialism. That is exactly what happened in Iraq, the oil was "privatized" by the military and put out to bid.

Just one thing to remember though, is that the Chinese are out building their own colonial empire right now too. Everybody does this crap. Poor egypt tried to raise its minimum wage, then got sued by a big French company, in a trade tribunal.

Maybe those perfect Scandinavians, the Swedes, have poor conditions in their overseas Ikea factories.

Our militarism will continue just exactly as long as Uncle Sugar is indebted to US based supra-national corps for campaign finance and, more importantly, for post civil service employment (bribery).

Very few mainstream politicians can or will exist outside that system.

Well maybe we're being too cynical.. public opinion actually does matter..

If John McCain had been in the WH, he would not have pulled out of Iraq.

If Mitt Romney were in the WH, odds are we'd be back in Iraq and dealing with ISIS. This is what Republicans have been hollering for, no? Going after Syria, get back in Iraq? Yet we have not done that, well that's because there's a war-hesitant POTUS in the WH.

So it does make a difference, actually, who is in that WH. Put a Republican in the WH, and you're going to get Republican interventionism.

Put a corporate Democrat in there, and you're gonna get the same thing.

Objectively -- Obama really has been non-interventionist, compared to what a R or Hillary would have been.

So I think it does matter, if all the people are saying "hell no we don't want another war right now" then it really does prevent a war.
And, again, having a war reticent POTUS also prevents wars.

But you're right, in that nobody is going to be a perfect peace candidate. We're bashing our corporations right now, but business interests actually matter and always have, since the beginning of time. (the 99% needs a bigger share of these profits, is the issue)

I don't know what the answer is. In the absence of a one world order, a globalist "g8" club ruling together, then what you have instead is back to realpolitk and yes that means trade wars and resource wars and feuds and fights.

As for who I'm voting for, I'm happy to vote for the least war-likely candidate possible; if we've got to have a war, it will find us, we don't need to go looking for it too much. Neocons will say you can PREVENT a big war, by handling it early, but I'm just leaning the other way now.

(and, as I've been saying lately, and sort of what you said up there Pops -- our corporations and rich have actually become too disconnected from those of us on the homefront, so ergo these wars don't even benefit us.

This is all very very difficult stuff -- because if you do want peace then that brings you right back around to globalism and these trade deals, yet those are going to level us out with the rest of the world and make us poorer / you'll have China making the rules more, on environment, on labor, on everything.)

edit: just to add and clarify, these issues actually are very complex -- it's why those senators have such a hard time with these decisions.

But anyhow, I do feel embarassed for that period of time where I was going on about red lines. It has genuinely been dawning on me lately that we shouldn't be world cop anymore. And that corporations' interests are not necessarily the country's interests. Or mine.

Others in the world can step up for once, instead of us, let's take a break. It actually doesn't have to be us, all the time.

Yet -- if some dictator is rolling over places and gobbling places up, then at some point of course we have to respond to that. Short of that though, don't go lookin' for trouble unless it's extremely obvious we have no other choice.

So that's some progress for me anyhow, ***that I won't be responding to Republican campaign this year when they do right wing populism -- military involvement, red lines talk, "America not retreating anymore" talk.***

And, regardless of whatever I say on this forum, as far as my votes go -- I've voted straight D ever since Obama's first election. Voted Bush twice, before that, and that second term was enough for me.

[Pops]

The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You
Paul Wolfowitz not only championed the Iraq war; he obsessively promoted a bizarre conspiracy theory.
—By David Corn | Wed May 13
Last week, Jeb Bush, the all-but-announced GOP presidential candidate, stirred up a fuss when he privately told a group of Manhattan financiers that his top adviser on US-Israeli policy is George W. Bush. Given that Jeb has tried mightily to distance himself from his brother, whose administration used false assertions to launch the still highly unpopular Iraq war, this touting of W.—even at a behind-closed-doors session of Republican donors—seemed odd. But perhaps more noteworthy is that Jeb Bush has embraced much of his brother's White House foreign policy team. In February, the Jeb Bush campaign released a list of 21 foreign policy advisers; 17 of them served in the George W. Bush administration. And one name stood out: Paul Wolfowitz, a top policy architect of the Iraq war—for the prospect of Wolfowitz whispering into Jeb's ear ought to scare the bejeezus out of anyone who yearns for a rational national security policy.

Wolfowitz, who was deputy defense secretary under George W. Bush, was a prominent neocon cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq. He was also the top conspiracy theorist in the Bush-Cheney crowd. As Michael Isikoff and I reported in our our 2006 book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Wolfowitz, prior to the Iraq war, was a champion of a bizarre theory promoted by an eccentric academic named Laurie Mylroie: Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, not Islamic extremists such as Al Qaeda, was responsible for most of the world's anti-United States terrorism.

Mother Jones

This person Mylroie even believed that Saddam was behind the OKC bombing.

[Sixstrings]

Well, Bush is trying to now walk back "I would have authorized the war" to saying that he actually would have made a different decision than his brother did / "I don't know what that decision would have been:"

BUSH STRUGGLES TO CLARIFY STANCE ON WISDOM OF INVADING IRAQ

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Struggling with the shadows of Iraq, Jeb Bush said Tuesday he would have made a different decision than his brother to invade Iraq in 2003 had he known what he does now about flaws in the nation's intelligence.

But he didn't say what that decision would have been.

...

In a radio interview Tuesday, Bush said it was clear there were mistakes in reports claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Had he known about the faulty intelligence, Bush said, he would have made a different decision about sending tens of thousands of U.S. troops into Iraq.

"I don't know what that decision would have been," Bush said on Sean Hannity's radio show. "That's a hypothetical."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GOP_2016_THE_IRAQ_QUESTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-05-12-19-16-32

[PrestonSturges]

The way Jeb answered, he said he'd invade today. Although that's probably not what he meant, it was a stupid, stupid answer.

And that's what Laura Ingraham said on her show, that invading was a stupid act by stupid people. So I guess that means that even conservative pundits are now saying that Michael Moore and Code Pink are smarter than any Republican?

[Sixstrings]

The way Jeb answered, he said he'd invade today. Although that's probably not what he meant, it was a stupid, stupid answer.

Preston -- he was speaking english. I speak english. He very clearly said "I would have authorized the Iraq war." And he said it confidently, in a decider kind of way. So now he just backs off it and he's doing all this "meaning of is, is."

As a voter, I don't even care about the question itself -- I already know Jeb Bush is a neocon. Hello, he's a Bush, that shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Every Bush that's ever been President has had a war in Iraq, well Jeb would be the third Bush president.

So anyway, the question I find more interesting is whether Jeb could be a good leader, and if he's knowledgeable.

This boneheaded Iraq statement thing, shows neither.

a) why did he jump in so forcefully to own Iraq and take a position on it? He could have finessed that question. He was actually not in federal gov, he wasn't a senator or anything. He needn't have owned this like he did, and it was unwise to let this be the first big headline about his campaign, talking about darn Iraq war of all things.

b) but once you do jump in -- don't walk it back. Don't wobble. That just makes him look like he's not as serious of a thinker as we thought he was. It makes him look weak. So now he loses some neocon respect too, he just looks squishy.

So he made two blunders there.

I'm surprised he made these mistakes, he's not as good of a candidate as I thought he was.

[careinke]

Jeb Bush and the rest of the republican candidates are all psychotic fools. Everyone associated with the Repubican Party is a psychotic fool. Except the Mormon. He/it is merely a dimwitted rich boy.

I could make a case that ALL politicians at the federal level, (except perhaps Ron Paul, and even he finally gave up), are psychopaths. They all feel superior to the masses and have a sick desire to control them. This drive is so strong they will make deals with people who give them money to stay in office.

The only difference between the two parties is Rethuglicans are better at math than science, and the Dimocrats are better at theft and worrying about what others are doing with their money.

[careinke]

I don't see how the rethugs are better at math. We demos understand the planet is a finite entity. The rethugs believe we are destined to be raptured up and it doesn't matter if we burn the whole place down.

You have a point. I was thinking more towards economics.

I have decided both parties are evil, and have rigged the system so my vote just empowers the system, and makes no difference if I vote Rethug, Dim, or even third party. As a result, I plan to not vote on Federal issues anymore. In the great words of WOPR in the movie War Games "The only way to win, is not to play."

Besides, think of all the time I will save, not reading Six's tomes as he finally figures out he will be voting for Hillary.

[Sixstrings]

Besides, think of all the time I will save, not reading Six's tomes as he finally figures out he will be voting for Hillary.

edit: oh nevermind, rephrase.. I still have Republican in my bones, I don't really want to argue with a Republican.

I understand R's.. I know where you are coming from.. you're just afraid of "socialism." Working class R's would rather be poor, but free of government control that they don't like. They value their freedom even more than food on the table.

So I get that.

But there's a limit to it. Just as there was in the 1930s, under Hooverism, and R's lost too many of the people and they were suffering too much and just weren't gonna take it anymore so they elected FDR and cheered him as he said "the rich hate me and I welcome their hatred."

I probably will NOT vote Hillary -- just because I don't like to be manipulated. Hillary camp thinks the Sanders / Warren stuff is a "liberal left wing catharsis" and then we're all just gonna come in line at the end of it and vote for her.

So I don't like that part, I don't like manipulation / being used. I may just write Sanders name in, in the general, and that's my right and choice.

There are real issues at stake though -- both parties have committed themselves to capital-export free trade, wherein corps are given tax breaks and incentives to offshore jobs and invest overseas versus domestically.

All the R's -- and all but a small handful of Dems -- see this as the new reality, and no going back from it.

But this new global race to the bottom is going to undue everything we've got, social security, minimum wages, labor laws, environmental protections. It's race to the bottom and that means moving closer to China and Vietnam not only on wages, but labor laws too and eco protections and all of that.

So I don't know, it just is what it is, welcome to Blade Runner Ron Paul dystopia -- that's our future. I'll probably just write Sanders name in, for the general election.

[Pops]

...tomes ...

Consider Twain,
“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

If you want read, edit.

[Sixstrings]

Jeb Bush evolves some more:

I would NOT have gone into Iraq says Jeb Bush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd90Z28B8_A

After saying he definitely would NOT have authorized the Iraq war, he then rolls right into saying "whats the role of America going forward, are we going to be defeatist and pessimistic?"

Am I mishearing him or is that still a neocon interventionist argument?

As far as being defeatist, and we shouldn't "pull back from the world" because "that's defeatist" -- what about blind people, and people with cancer, looking at a 19% SS disability cut right now, in the Republican budget?

What about the median income that has gone DOWN, not up?

What about the working class, and millenials, that are REALLY struggling? With all the new jobs added, being low wage part time retail?

WHAT ABOUT REPUBLICANS THAT WON'T RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE?

Jeb Bush won't address any of that.

I know what Jeb would say -- that his free trade deals would "create a lot of jobs." He has in fact talked about gdp growth targets, but THE REALITY IS THAT 99% OF GDP GROWTH INCOME GAINS GO TO THE 1%. So wtf. Who cares about gdp growth then.

Jeb Bush is living in the past, I'm sorry people. If Jeb Bush would like America to lead in the world again and do all this stuff we used to do, then Jeb Bush would have to do some real things to lift working people up first, or I'm sorry we can't just do it anymore.