Hanging Chads re-runs - A Jebb Bush 2016 saga

Jeb Bush is an American politician best known for serving as Florida's governor from 1998 to 2007, during the highly contested 2000 Presidential election.. 

He is a member of the Bush family dynasty, the son of 41st U.S. President George Bush and brother of 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush.

What's most memorable about Governor Bush when he was Florida's governor is the episode of the hanging chads.

In the 2000 USA Presidential election when Governor Bush's brother George was running for president against Vice President Al Gore, many Florida voters used punched card ballots where incompletely-punched holes resulted in partially punched chads: either a "hanging chad", where one or more corners were still attached, or a dimpled chad or pregnant chad, where all corners were still attached, but an indentation appeared to have been made. These votes were not counted by the tabulating machines.

As a result of this fiasco, vote counters were required to use magnifying glasses to determine if hanging chads were qualified votes.  In the end, it didn't even matter because the US Supreme Court called the election over and Al Gore lost to Governor Bush's brother, George W. Bush the 43rd President of the US.

I don't believe the hanging chad vote disaster was a coincidence or an anamoly in the 2000 election. My hunch is that some sort of contrived conundunrum was anticipated, whereby Governor Bush would pull off a win for his brother. It was political brotherly love.

Jebb Bush might be a good person, an intelligent politician and a devoted family man. Nevertheless, I don't trust what happened in the 2000 election, when he was Florida's governor and the brother of the future President, who defeated Vice President Gore. Jebb Bush was determined to win Florida for his brother, regardless of how he had to do it.  In fact, the US Supreme Court did it for him. The  court elected George Bush president, thereby getting Jebb off the hook for having to risk a complete recount of Florida's vote.  

It's been my opinion since, September 11, 2001 opened the War on Terror, that the Bush family is worried about consequences of the illegal Iraq War i.e. "Iraqi Freedom", the invasion of a soverign nation under the pretext of destroying Weapons of Mass Destruction, that did not exist. As a result, over 4,000 Americans and many more Iraqi civilians died in a war without justification. Meanwhile, the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden found a hiding place in Pakistan, while Americans died in Iraq.  Jebb Bush and the family dynasty must also worry about being complicit in crimes against humanity, as the Senate report about torture of men suspected of terrorist activities has now been released.  

I just can't imagine how Governor Bush is motivated to run for election in 2016, with so much negative baggage in his portfolio.

Surely, as Jebb Bush's mother Barbara said, there must be other Republicans who are qualified to run for president?  Regardless if there are others or not, Jebb Bush should not put the nation through a daunting series of hanging chad re-runs, in what would surely become a very damaging and negative campaign.

My advice to Jebb Bush is to stay out of politics altogether.



 

Leon Panetta needs a reality check while he second guesses US troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria

Leon Panetta was once a Congressman and a former Cabinet member, but he's truly lost his sense of reality by criticizing President Obama about how to respond to the Middle East turmoil. Panetta is receiving a lot of Fox News hype by criticizing President Obama for the crises now consuming the Middle East with evil ISIS beheading innocent people and the Syrian revolution against President Assad. 

Well, Mr. Panetta, maybe you've become bored by raising almonds on your California farm, so you've decided to be a pundit. Nevertheless, while you were harvesting nuts, the fact is, thousands of American military were among the dead who fought in Iraqi Freedom and their deaths accomplished virtually nothing - zero!

Now, Mr. Panetta, you have the audacity to criticize President Obama because the US military can't defeat ISIS and help the rebels in Syria unless boots are on the ground.  Mr. Panetta, the ISIS network would conduct victory celebrations in advance of news that Americans would put US military boots on the ground to fight against them. ISIS generates about $1 million a day in clandestine economic transactions. It would take them about three weeks to pay for the capture of just one US military person to parade in front of a masked executioner. In fact, if the US is stupid enough to put boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria, I'd be willing to bet money on odds about the number of hours it would take before one US military person is a hostage.  

Shame on Mr. Panetta's preening punditry. He hasn't even acknowledged the valiant bravery of the thousands of US military who believed they were fighting for Iraqi Freedom. Now Fallujha is occupied by ISIS while American military blood is still fresh in the streets.  

US, with its coalition nations' airstrikes and drones can deter the ISIS advances, but it will take a local militia to put boots on the ground to defeat these terrorists.

American military must not give one more sacrifice to protect Iraq. Clearly, the ISIS enemy can be overcome by the sheer numbers of thousands of opponents who have nothing to loose by resisting the evil group's atrocious power grabbing. In other words, there are more people in refugee camps than those who are controlled by ISIS. A massive human chain is a very treacherous anti ISIS strategy, but the alternative is also dangerous. There's nothing to be gained by sitting in a refugee camp waiting for the next meal to be served while terrorists are randomly having their way by spreading fear. 

Mr. Panetta, you are wrong to be edging on President Obama, by criticizing his decision to keep the US military from putting boots on the ground in the Middle East. We know the myth of "mission accomplished". Indeed, the Iraq mission was not accomplished. Iraqi Freedom became a failed operation after the US military left. Iraq. President Maliki didn't want the US to stay in Iraq.

 US military should be protecting Americans from terrorist attacks, and let the Iraqi and Syrian rebels put their own boots on the ground to defeat ISIS.

Americans will not tolerate any beheading of a US serviceman

Americans should never be in a position where we witness a US service person beheaded by evil ISIS barbaric fiends. When news leaks that Americans have "boots on the ground", this information will spark unprecedented bribes by evil ISIS to obtain any US military person as a captive, to create a ransom power threat against the USA and Great Britain. American must never put our military in this uncompromising situation, especially when our nation's national security isn't at imminent risk of an invasion or direct attack.

In past blogs, I've advocated for military action against Syrian president Bashir al-Assad and his Russian backed dictatorship. Of course, my advocacy call to defend and protect the oppressed Syrian refugees from continuous death by Assad, doesn't consider the risk of American military being beheaded, if some of them are captured defending the refugees. In the past, in Dessert Storm, or the Gulf War and in operation Iraqi Freedom, there've been American military captured. Often these past incidents resulted in a heroic rescue. Without a doubt, any potential ISIS capture of an American or English military person would raise the horror of a prisoner of war to a horribly heinous plateau.

Therefore, it seems to me that putting American military boots on the ground in the war to defeat ISIS is not advisable.

Rather than see any US or British military person put at risk for the chilling risk of beheadings, it makes more sense to pay for reliable intelligence so the ISIS fiends can be eradicated and evaporated by drones. Likewise, regional Arab troops must be inspired to protect their own nations from being corrupted by ISIS evil, because as this extremist group grows, the result is even more death to all who find themselves victims in their dark circles of barbarism.