The Bubbles Dynasty

[#bubblesdynasty]

Via Politico:

A new federal tax filing indicates that Vice President Mike Pence’s brother, Greg, is preparing to launch a campaign for Congress in Indiana ....

.... Greg Pence has been weighing a run for Congress in Messer’s 6th District for months. Pence, a businessman, has appeared at his brother’s side as he ran for office but would be new to political office himself. Greg Pence has already been deeply involved in Indiana politics this year through his work for Messer. He is serving as the chairman of Messer’s Senate finance committee and starred in a video announcing Messer’s Senate bid.

Because what the world needs now is a new American political dynasty. Vice-President Pence’s stupidity and vice are the sort of things we can easily pass over as given, but we also such things as we find ourselves revisiting fifteen months later, since people went ahead and made the mistake, anyway. The obvious question arises about fruit and the family tree: How much smarter is “General Harassment” than his younger brother, Vice President “Bubbles”?   

The Jeb Bush Show (Anticlimatic)

“The climate is changing. I don’t think the science is clear on what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you. It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t have a conversation about it even.”

―Jeb Bush

Could someone remind me again, just why did we think Jeb Bush would be the “serious” candidate?

The Washington Post account of a New Hampshire fundraiser really does make the former Florida governor sound petulant:

The issue of climate change came up as the host of the house party asked Bush to comment on a speech given Wednesday by President Obama, who said that climate change is a “serious threat” to national security.

“Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security,” Obama told Coast Guard graduates in their dress white uniforms at the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut, “and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country. And so we need to act— and we need to act now.”

In response, Bush said that climate change should be just “part of, a small part of prioritization of our foreign policy.” He suggested that the United States should encourage countries that have higher carbon emissions rates to reduce them.

But, he added, “We’ve had a pretty significant decrease and we’ll continue on, not because of Barack Obama, but because of the energy revolution.” He credited hydraulic fracking, horizontal drilling and an increased use of natural gas for helping cut American carbon emissions.

Just a hint for the Most Serious Clown in the Car: Pulling it out of the ground has nothing to do with reducing the exhaust.

Kind of like the whole Underpants Gnomes thing:

Step One: Get more oil and natural gas out of the ground.

Step Two: [???]

Step Three: Reduce carbon emissions.

And that’s what we get from the (ahem!) “serious” clown.

The Jeb Bush Show (Lonely Own Man)

It really is kind of sad. Jeb Bush’s struggle to define himself as something other than the latest edition of a political dynasty becomes one of the unsung debacles of the richest clown in the car. Or, as Steve Benen of msnbc has chronicled:

• “Jeb Bush’s dubious new pitch: ‘I am my own man'” (18 February 2015)

• “Jeb Bush steps on his ‘own man’ message” (24 March 2015)

• “Jeb’s ‘I am my own man’ pitch takes another hit” (27 March 2015)

• “Jeb throws the ‘I am my own man’ pitch out the window” (1 April 2015)

This is what it comes to:

After Jeb Bush turned to his mother, father, and brother to help raise money for his super PAC, I joked last week that the Republican might have to turn to Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, Jeb’s son, for the next fundraising appeal. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it’s tough to joke about these guys.

Rachel noted on the show last night that George P. Bush did, in fact, write the latest fundraising pitch for his father’s Right to Rise PAC.

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Image note:Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush waits backstage before speaking at the Iowa Agriculture Summit, March 7, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)