There was that time JEB! forced single mothers to post their sexual history in the newspaper...

This man cannot be president.

I am not exaggerating what happened here.

If a mother was going to give up her child for adoption, the conservative legislature--supported and signed by one Jeb Bush-- she was required to PUBLISH HER ENTIRE SEXUAL HISTORY in a major newspaper.

The idea behind it was... actually, I don't know what the hell the idea was except to publically shame the woman. (Publically shaming unwed mothers, by the way, is something JEB! actually loudly and proudly called on people to do.)

All I know is that it passed under our wacko bird GOP legislature.

It was called the Scarlet Letter law.

Your friends, neighbors, employers, family, and acquaintances would be able to read everyone you had sex with alongside their Sunday funnies.

If you were raped and conceived a child, (cuz the body doesn't distiguish rape sperm), you couldn't give the child up for adoption in the State of Florida unless you gave the rapist a chance to read about it in the paper.

Or if the man abandoned you and ran off, JEB! and his cohorts thought that maybe seeing his name in print would make him want to return and raise that child.

Along with the mother's name, the notice had to include the following:

must contain a physical description, including, but not limited to age, race, hair and eye color, and approximate height and weight of the minor's mother and of any person the mother reasonably believes may be the father; the minor's date of birth; and any date and city, including the county and state in which the city is located, in which conception may have occurred.

You read that right. The mother had to put all her personal information, including weight, her sexual partners, and WHERE they may have conceived. NO exception was made in a case of rape! Oh, and it wasn't a one-time ad. It had to run for one month at the MOTHER'S personal expense even though this was forced on her.

I don't know what the F-- they were thinking, but it happened.

Instead of being publically shamed, Florida women simply refused to do this. It may have happened, but I don't know of one case where a woman printed her sexual history in the paper.

Do you know what DID happen though? Abortions increased. Adoptions dropped--by a lot. I know a personal friend of mine who wanted to adopt his stepdaughter when the law was in effect, but he couldn't. Not without humiliating his wife. This was JEB!'s Florida.

Eventually, John Ellis Dumb-ass Bush conceded this may not have been the brightest idea. He relented. But it got what he wanted: to SHAME women.

An excerpt from JEB's 1995 book, ironically titled "Profiles in Character":

One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful.

The good ole' days. If only we could return to them. Then again, I don't ever recall JEB! criticizing Bristol Palin. It's just certain women, I suppose.

The backlash from this awful law was such that the law was repealed fairly quickly. That's good news. What is reprehensible is how JEB! is being allowed to rewrite recent history as if he never wanted this law and was somehow unable to stop it. He could have and he didn't. It was a very shameful time in our state's history, and one that shouldn't be overlooked.

I guess so much awfulness has happened to our state since (Stand Your Ground--also Bush, Terri Schiavo, Rick Scott, etc.) that it's easy to forget what happened. Please don't let that happen. We are faced with the most anti-woman, anti-progressive slate of GOP candidates in history. Rubio wants to ban all abortions in all cases. Walker wants a woman to be raped again with an unnecessary, transvaginal wand for no medical reason whatsoever. We in Florida know what JEB! is capable of, and then there's Trump.

I wish to modify my original statement. NONE of them can be president.

JEB! calls for "honest discussion" on Mexicans being rapists and killers

At the very least, I thought, the inevitable John Ellis Bush (JEB) entry into the race would be an opportunity for the extreme racism that is rampant in the GOP to be tampered down a bit because of his wife and kids.

However, I was not counting on JEB being such a f*&*ing coward:

CNN:

Hispanic leaders say Republican Party must condemn Trump

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said simply that Trump is "wrong."

"Maybe we'll have a chance to have an honest discussion about it on stage," Bush said last weekend while campaigning in Nevada.

An honest discussion about what?! The finer points of Donald Trump's blatant racism?

THE MAN just insulted your family!! What the hell is wrong with you!

Hispanics are told, by JEB no less, that they need to vote for him because he has a brown wife and children. But he stayed silent when Trump smeared his wife's country of origin and calls her countrymen "rapists" and "killers".

Only when specifically asked about it did he even say that was wrong.

Do you need the bigot vote that badly? or are you just scared of our national joke who calls himself TRUMP?

Let me spell this out for you:

IF YOU CANNOT EVEN STAND UP FOR YOUR OWN FAMILY, DON'T ASK FOR A JOB THAT REQUIRES YOU TO DEFEND ANY OF US.

Your brother is a damn idiot and hurt our nation very badly; but at the very least, he wasn't a coward.

Even FL GOP Blasts JEB's Deadenders Who Are Still Screwing Over FL Schools

To say Bush was a horrible governor would be an understatement. Because of him we have the Stand Your Ground law, which has put every minority in this state in a gun nut's crosshairs. He illegally interfered with Terri Schiavo's wish that she not be a living potato. He ran the most dysfunctional Department of Children and Families in the nation and dismantled any form growth management in this state. Florida has deteriorated rapidly from 17 years of complete GOP rule, with Jeb and Scott being the worst offenders.

The failure that is rarely talked about, however, is John Ellis Bush's disastrous education policies that stemmed from his obsession over testing.

Out of the 180-day academic year, Miami-Dade County schools will administer standardized tests on EVERY DAY BUT EIGHT! This includes 18 exams required exclusively by Florida, five by the district, two federal, and dozens of assessments covering placement to state guidelines.

None of these include the standard tests that teachers are supposed to give.

Students, parents, reading teachers, principals, business and professional organizations, testing experts, consultants, and concerned citizens are so outraged that even the GOP, which at first strongly supported Jeb's million test march, now admits it was wrong. It has gotten so bad that severely disabled children are forced to take the test, even a child who is blind and missing most of his brain!

For crying out loud, even kids without disabilities who are doing well in school are also failing these state assessments. An Orange County school board member who holds several advanced degrees recently took one and barely passed. As someone who works in the field of learning, I know that tests need to go through reliability, validity and validation. Clearly, none of this is taking place. The problem is obviously the test, not the kids.

All of this testing madness, which has spread like a cancer nationwide, came about because of JEB's ideological obsession along with typical Bush family ignorance. The outrage finally led to some sort of relief--not fixing the tests themselves but at least reducing the number of tests taken. The bill would scrap a law requiring school districts to come up with end-of-course tests in classes where the state doesn't administer such exams; cap at 5 percent the share of students' time that can be spent on testing; and reduce from 50 percent to a third the portion of a teacher's evaluation tied to student performance.

But the bill no longer includes language that would have allowed students who do well on the SAT, ACT or tests in high-level classes like Advanced Placement courses to skip the corresponding statewide standardized tests. The reason? Jeb Bush's ironically named Foundation for Florida's Future. These dead-enders oppose any and all changes to the tests. Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, withdrew that amendment after a blistering speech aimed at Jeb Bush's foundation. Others GOP members had plenty to say:

"Obviously, the testing has gotten out of control. ... I want to have a non-subjective measure, so we can know exactly how our kids are doing," Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland.

"I think we've lost our way and we need to find it again," said Sen. Don Gaetz of Niceville, another former Senate president who has backed education reform.

Gaetz, who chairs the Senate Education Appropriations Subcommittee, vowed to spend his final year in the Senate on a mission "to bring some order out of chaos."

Sen. Alan Hays, a conservative Republican from Umatilla, said lawmakers had the best intentions but went too far.

"It is sad that today, many of our teachers and even administrators are simply waiting to earn their retirement checks because our well-intentioned but misguided policies have taken the joy out of teaching," Hays said.

What can make this worse? The analysis also says that all four testing companies have donated to the JEB's Foundation for Excellence in Education. The foundation is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC.

Two days ago, against all odds, the GOP House approved the bill.

Teachers are justifiably upset that they can't get more of a fix. But this is Florida, folks. If you want change, try showing up at the polls, no matter how hard they make it.

Unfortunately, JEB is understandably not happy with this bill since one of his "selling points" is that he was the "education governor", and he is whispering in Rick's ear.

Rick Scott, for his part, has not indicated whether he would sign it. He has ZERO incentive to do the right thing but every incentive to do the wrong thing. The only possible reason he would sign it is if he cared even remotely about the welfare of Floridian children.

Given the examples here, here, here, and here, you might not want to hold your breath.

JEB's Second Major Screwup This Week: Publishes FL Residents Personal Data ONLINE

Before my rant, I must ask: Why do republicans insist on pushing this stupid family down our throats? Bill Clinton had to rescue our economy after Bush I ran it into the ground, and now after several years, President Obama has finally pulled us out of the economic train wreck of Bush II.

So who is the current the GOP frontrunner? Bush III.

You realize that if JEB is able to pull of a win, (which is within the realm of possibility given the fact that the Kochs raised $249 million to help the GOP at a one-day summit last week), we'll have had 36 years of every GOP president being from just one family.

One very, very, AWFUL family.

Nonetheless, W's younger brother still has PLENTY of problems that he must overcome. The one problem he hasn't had to deal with is one he's been trying to hide for years: his genetically inbred incompetence streak.

That might be changing. For as hard as he tries, John Ellis Bush just can't hide being a Bush.

First, he decided it was a swell idea to hire Ethan Czahor as his technology chief. Ethan is a mysoginst and racist (who was nonetheless fiercely defended by fellow conservatives). JEB knew this guy had called women "sluts", made fun of gays, and said African-Americans spoke "gibberish", but went ahead and hired him anyway hoping no one would notice. After the media firestorm, (and ONLY after), did Bush accept his resignation.

Two days later....

In an attempt to paint himself as transparent, Bush released thousands of emails from his time as governor. Obviously, he vetted many of them because the most damning ones, like the emails eliciting help for Bacardi in return for campaign donations, couldn't be found in the 300,000 emails he released.

However, many of the emails he did release contained people's names, birthdates and social security numbers: everything you need for an identify theft.

He also released people's phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses.

There are too many to go over, but this one gives you an idea. A healthcare representative gave information about a child with a life-threatening medical condition, including the mother and child's name, phone number, social security number, and healthcare identification number.

It would have been nice if team JEB had bothered to put a minimum level of effort to delete sensitive information. At least they could have put as much effort into it as they did in deleting past offensive tweets.

JEB was a failure. Make sure he stays gone!

Do you guys really want to be the national joke again?

The nation resoundly rejected a continuation of the Bush policies by overwhelmingly rejecting John McCain--and he did his best to run AWAY from the Bush name. If George W. Bush had been able to run, I think you would have seen an election reminiscent of Mondale's 1984 shellacking (just without Minnesota and DC).

Good citizens, how is it that Jeb Bush, a man who, like his brother, squandered a huge surplus from a previous Democratic administration with a massive $6.6 billion in tax cuts that only benefited Florida's wealthiest residents, is a serious contender for Mel Martinez' Senate seat?

Now our state is in such a fiscal crisis that the GOP legislature is now making huge cuts to our public schools and healh care facilities--and more are coming. JEB did to our state what Bush did to our country--which is why I can't understand why anyone would reward that man.

What makes the situation worse is that while JEB shared his brother's priority to help those who need it the least while hurting those who need it most, he was simultaneously lying about the severity of the state budget.

(What do you expect. The man lies about his own damn name. It's not even JEB--he hicked it up for the yokels. His real name is John Ellis Bush for crying out loud.)

Being responsible for the state's fiscal crisis should be enough to discourage anyone from reliving the Bush years. But, as it goes with the Bush legacy, there are many more reasons. People tend to look at the past with rose-colored glasses, so let me give a few more examples of live under JEB:

JEB is the one responsible for dropping legitimate voters who had been illegally purged by him and his Secretary of State, Katherine Harris. Even after the 2000 debacle, he had a "solution" for "those people" by instituting a complicated process that had the purged voters reapply for their own rights that never should have been taken away to begin with. In 2004, he hired a company that kicked off thousands of African-Americans, but surprisingly, less than 80 Cuban-Americans (who tend to vote GOP). Even JEB couldn't explain that one and, under intense pressure, finally backed off.

JEB turned critical state services over to private corporations. He shifted the job of providing for the poor to faith-based organizations while making huge cuts to spending programs to Medicare and health care programs for the elderly and disabled. The underfunded Department of Children and Families, which had few caseworkers, took 15 months to discover that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson was missing from her foster home. JEB, like his forever blameless brother, blamed the caseworkers.

JEB said he had "Devious PLANS" to kill the classroom-size amendment that voters demanded. Sen. Kendrick Meek called Bush's proposal to kill the classroom size amendment & threats of more cuts to much needed social services "a premeditated abuse of the highest office in Florida to circumvent the will of the people.''

JEB fought like hell to force a brain-dead woman, Terry Schiavo, to be force-fed because he claimed he was "pro-life". Yet he was unmoved by this letter to the St. Petersburg Times on 04/15/2003 by another citizen who desperately wanted to live: "I am just one of the 26,000 who received the letter from the Department of Children and Families last week, informing us that Gov. Jeb Bush and our elected public servants have given me until May 1 to continue my chemo. Then I must prepare to die in half the time I would live with chemo."

I could go on with the corruption, the failed Medicaid Reform Plan, or a host of other reasons that I have written about in previous blogs during his reign. But the truth of the matter is, its the Florida Democrats who are the reason JEB is now a serious contender. I talked about all the issues I have just mentioned and more, and how the FlaDems were giving JEB a free pass in this blog post back in December 2006. I warned that this meant he could return at a later date--but I thought at the time it would be as either VEEP or a presidential contender. (Even I didn't see how quickly the Bush family and their principles would fall out of favor).

But in this strange bubble we live in called Florida, JEB is poised to become a serious contender for Senate--bringing back what we have all fought so hard to overcome.

This time, we can't afford to roll over.

Bets on the GOP Primary

Step right up. It’s time to play the "Who’s Left Standing" or "Who's Gonna Self Destruct the Least" and win the GOP Primary. Yes, I know it’s early—that’s why it’s fun to show off a little. Six months from now we will have a pretty clear idea—and a year from now it will be over. Let’s test those analytical/crystal ball skills of yours.

I don’t mean to brag, but I have picked the nominee for the GOP correctly 100% of the time since 1988. I also have the same track record for the Dems – I have always picked the WRONG one. But the GOP is much more predictable, and this time I can finally put my MOJO where my mouth is. If you follow the money, the support structure, and most importantly, get into the mind of the GOP primary voter—you can figure it out barring any last minute scandal. Here is my analysis of the contenders, who will ultimately win, and why.

Mitt Romney: NO DICE. My last poll showed a lot of you are leaning towards Romney. Originally a moderate who ran a deep blue state, but low and behold, all of the sudden he "found Jesus" (not the real one, the GOP version with the political platform who preaches intolerance and tax cuts). Lucky for Mitt, he found this Jesus right before courting conservatives for the GOP primary—whew! Close one. Now all of the sudden, he is rabidly anti-gay, strongly pro-life (and has always been, dammit), and embraces Ann Coulter.

Conservatives hate a flip-flop, but they they may figure he’s the best shot for them out of all the frontrunners. Guiliani isn’t one of them, and they just hate that McCain. However, hating people is what religious fundamentalists do best, and Mitt has something that religious conservatives love to hate—a different religion. It wasn’t that many years ago I was watching Pat Robertson rant on his 700 Club that Mormonism was "just plain wrong". The Baptist Church I used to go to here in Seminole (I switched fast) had a bible study that somehow turned into a sermon on the "abomination" of Christianity: ("Do you know what they believe???") The right-wing is pretty solidly behind Romney right now, though, as evidenced by wacko Hewitt’s latest book, A Mormon in the White House, where he tries to "justify" the "Mormon problem" and goes on to smear McCain.

But there are too many negatives. His fundraising isn’t close to the other two titans, and he hasn’t been in any leads except for a straw poll (that he really should have skipped---tying him to Raggedy Ann didn’t boast him that much with conservatives, but it was probably the kiss of death for any broader appeal along with his sudden hard-right turn). I doubt that even the state he goverened would go for him, and I predict that it won’t happen for Mitt.

John McCain: DICE. He’ll probably win. The GOP believes in the establishment candidate. His appeal in 2000 was that he was the "maverick" candidate who talked straight and had broad appeal. But then he was Karl ROVED and slimed big time for it, with dumb GOP primary voters believing that he voted "against" breast cancer research and listening to push-pollers on his "illigitimate black child". I lost a lot of respect for McCain for calculating that he would support Bush and tolerate the attacks on himself and his family, even going so far to kiss Bush’s ass REPEATEDLY throughout the past 7 years, all so he could be the "establishment" candidate in 2008.

No one thinks he is a maverick any more. Dems no longer respect him, and that spells trouble because the GOP faithful still claims he is "one of us", especially after he put the smack down on the nuclear option. I really hope he gets his teeth kicked in at the primary, but GOP faithful normally do their master’s bidding without question—and it has been decreed that it’s John’s "turn".

Although he has been the only candidate to be consistently right-wing on his conservative social views, the religious right just doesn’t like him. This was solidified in 2000 when he railed against these nuts when W spoke at Bob Jones U. Robertson told George Stephanopolis that he would not support McCain under "any circumstances", but Falwell has warmed up to him, even allowing him to speak at his own right-wing breeding ground (Liberty University) in Virginia.

The age issue will be a factor in the general election, but won’t matter that much to GOP primary voters. They would vote for the corpse of Ronald Reagan if it was still on the ticket.

He has the money, the smarts, and the keys to the Bush machine as the consolation prize for sucking up and playing ball with the Bushies. Hell, he even got the go ahead for access to the Ranger/Pioneer followers of Dear Leader. Game, Set, Match. Prove me wrong, folks!

Rudy Guiliani: DICE? If not McCain, he's the man. I used to think he had a shot, but now I think he won’t win. The right will simply not tolerate a pro-choice Repbulican to be their candidate. Falwell stated that he would not speak ill of Guiliani, but won’t support him because of his pro-choice, pro-gay views. Guiliani is trying to pander by promising judges who would overturn Roe, but as I said before, the right doesn’t buy it and it just frightens the moderates.

But he thought that his 9/11 performance, (which got a free pass in the press at that time because we were lookin for heroes), would be enough to get traction to carry him past the wackos and make the grade at the primary. People DO want strong leadership, the problem is that its not Guiliani. The letter by the NYC firefighters released last week put the smack down on his performance, and if he did make it past the primary, he would be swiftboated so bad it would have to be renamed. The commercials would feature 1st responsders would going on right after another telling the real story. Once the 9/11 halo is crushed, all you have left is a racially-insensivtive, nasty, ill-tempered, two-timing power-hungry bully.

Brownback: Too poor, too much like Bush, couldn’t win the general election if only Nader was on the ticket (Nader will run again, by the way). The faithful would love to have him, but they know (or should know ) they will never get another right-wing wacko in the White House. At least Bush posed as a moderate in 2000—and he didn’t even win the election. America will have suffered 8 long years of hell by 2008—the last thing they want is a Bush clone.

Huckabee: Same deal. Fawned all over how great Bush was not so long ago until even the dittoheads had to finally admit that Bush was clueless. All people know about him is that he lost a lot of weight, but not in his head. He will win Arkansas on Feb. 5, but that’ll be it.

Hunter, Tancredo: Fringe candidates so far down its not even funny or worth my time.

Jeb Bush: Won’t run, but I added him because he is the only one who could jump in late and make up the difference. Still popular in my home swing state of Florida, and the Dems gave him a free pass which allowed his star to rise (Message to my fellow FL Dems—you are doing the same damn thing with Crist—Knock it OFF!) Luckily, he is unpopular out of state--only being known as the Schiavo huckster, or unknown except for the Bush name—and since the Bush presidents have gotten consistently worse, I don’t think he’ll have a shot if he did run. He would be a good candidate for Veep for either Rudy or Romney—McCain wouldn’t pick him.

Gingrich: As if. Had an affair while lecturing Clinton. How hypocritical can this hideous man-whore get?

There you have it folks—I say McCain. When I’m right, I will post an entry next year and say Nyah, Nyah, Nyah. (Unless I’m wrong, in which this will be deleted and I never would have said anything).