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Salon: How Jeb Bush cheated America & helped deliver the presidency to W
Thank you immensely, Heather Digby Parton, for this EXCELLENT review, on the anniversary of the hostile takeover 15 years ago today.
“Your little brother is not the ultimate authority”: How Jeb Bush cheated America & helped deliver the presidency to W, Nov 3, 2015
Fifteen years ago, America voted for Al Gore. Unfortunately for Gore, he didn't have a governor for a brother
(Credit: Reuters/Jim Young)
When some of us hear Jeb Bush’s new slogan, “Jeb can fix it,” we don’t think of a mechanic getting under the hood and fixing the nation’s problems. We don’t even think of Jimmy Savile, the notorious British pedophile, whose show was called “Jim’ll fix it,” although some people sure will. No, we think about Election 2000 and the Florida recount, where Jeb proved that his slogan isn’t all hot air. Whatever else he did as Governor of Florida, when it came to that election, Jeb fixed it.
Anyone old enough to remember that election night, which was 15 years ago today, will remember that the outcome of the electoral college depended on that one state. And what came next is exactly what anyone would have predicted would happen when an election is so close it triggers a recount in a state in which the levers of power and the electoral machinery are run by one of the candidates’ brothers. That candidate was the one who became president.
The road George W. and Jeb Bush took to get there was complicated and difficult, and in the end had to be decided by a couple of Supreme Court justices who happened to have been appointed by the Bush brothers’ dad when he was president. (Who says that dynasties have no clout in American politics?) But Jeb proved himself to be particularly adept at getting the job done without getting his hands dirty.
.....
The media played an interesting part as well. The networks first called the election for Gore based on exit polls which later turned out to correctly predict for whom the people actually voted that day. Fox News, with one of its earliest political coups, was the first to call it for Bush. A consultant by the name of John Ellis, who later admitted to being on the phone with Jeb and George W. Bush throughout the evening, is the fellow who made that initial call for Fox. If his name sounds familiar it’s because John Ellis, is also Jeb Bush’s name; “Jeb” stands for John Ellis Bush. Ellis is George W. and Jeb’s first cousin.
The Bush campaign knew that once they had established their “lead” they needed to keep it. The key was to be able to declare victory and then portray the Gore campaign as being sore losers who refused to accept defeat. On election night, they almost succeeded in getting Gore to capitulate without a fight. He was on the way to make his concession speech when his team told him to hold up, that the margin was ridiculously tight and that a recount would be mandated by state law. The phone call that happened next was a very telling exchange:
.....
Jeb may not have been the ultimate authority but he had plenty of influence on the state’s electoral machinery, particularly the Secretary of State Katherine Harris who was in charge of the recount and who also happened to be one of George W. Bush’s campaign co-chairs. According to Jeffrey Toobin’s book “Too Close to Call” an angry Jeb awakened Harris at three in the morning to chastise her for allowing the assistant director of elections to go on TV and discuss Florida election laws, which required recounts and a standard of determining the intent of the voter. Jeb had this foolish bureaucrat yanked from the air immediately and he assigned her a political advisor by the name of Mac Stipanovich, a close political associate and master of Florida politics and electoral machinery.
.....
Anyone old enough to remember that election night, which was 15 years ago today, will remember that the outcome of the electoral college depended on that one state. And what came next is exactly what anyone would have predicted would happen when an election is so close it triggers a recount in a state in which the levers of power and the electoral machinery are run by one of the candidates’ brothers. That candidate was the one who became president.
The road George W. and Jeb Bush took to get there was complicated and difficult, and in the end had to be decided by a couple of Supreme Court justices who happened to have been appointed by the Bush brothers’ dad when he was president. (Who says that dynasties have no clout in American politics?) But Jeb proved himself to be particularly adept at getting the job done without getting his hands dirty.
.....
The media played an interesting part as well. The networks first called the election for Gore based on exit polls which later turned out to correctly predict for whom the people actually voted that day. Fox News, with one of its earliest political coups, was the first to call it for Bush. A consultant by the name of John Ellis, who later admitted to being on the phone with Jeb and George W. Bush throughout the evening, is the fellow who made that initial call for Fox. If his name sounds familiar it’s because John Ellis, is also Jeb Bush’s name; “Jeb” stands for John Ellis Bush. Ellis is George W. and Jeb’s first cousin.
The Bush campaign knew that once they had established their “lead” they needed to keep it. The key was to be able to declare victory and then portray the Gore campaign as being sore losers who refused to accept defeat. On election night, they almost succeeded in getting Gore to capitulate without a fight. He was on the way to make his concession speech when his team told him to hold up, that the margin was ridiculously tight and that a recount would be mandated by state law. The phone call that happened next was a very telling exchange:
.....
Jeb may not have been the ultimate authority but he had plenty of influence on the state’s electoral machinery, particularly the Secretary of State Katherine Harris who was in charge of the recount and who also happened to be one of George W. Bush’s campaign co-chairs. According to Jeffrey Toobin’s book “Too Close to Call” an angry Jeb awakened Harris at three in the morning to chastise her for allowing the assistant director of elections to go on TV and discuss Florida election laws, which required recounts and a standard of determining the intent of the voter. Jeb had this foolish bureaucrat yanked from the air immediately and he assigned her a political advisor by the name of Mac Stipanovich, a close political associate and master of Florida politics and electoral machinery.
.....
Village Voice:
Baker was practically announcing that Brother Jeb had put the legislature in play. With Feeney’s majority approving the Bush slate the very day that the U.S. Supreme Court weighed its final decision, the First Family of Texas and Florida was making it clear that it was even prepared to circumvent a 7 to 2 Republican court if it didn’t like the ultimate decision.
Digby again:
That may have been the single most important move by Jeb Bush during the whole recount period. By getting the legislature to provide the final backstop the media began the drumbeat that there was little point in further pursuing the recount. With the Florida Republicans prepared to use the arcane rules of the legislature to install George W. Bush no matter what the vote tally ultimately showed, the press now assumed Bush would be president. This was when they began to pat America on the back for being so civilized in the way it handles such disputes (there were no tanks in the streets!) and to tell Democrats to “get over it.”
More from my own research here. And here.
Jeb should be hammered with this at each and every opportunity that comes.
Just like Daddy, always keeping his own hands clean, Jeb Bush is a long-time fixer.
He is one of the leading bad actors responsible for the ongoing catastrophe draining the life out of our country today.
46 replies
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Last edited Tue Nov 3, 2015, 10:01 PM - Edit history (1)
Laura PourMeADrink, your question about 2004 reminded me of what Karl Rove bragged about:
By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
June 2, 2006
Rove, who is under investigation in the leak of a CIA operative’s identity, thrilled the partisan audience with behind-the-scenes anecdotes in the West Wing or on Air Force One. He recalled his sophisticated computer program to track returns on election night 2004 that contradicted exit polls showing Bush losing in Florida.
“I’ll never forget. The first county I clicked was Hernando. Then Pasco. And about that time, Jeb called in,” Rove recalled. “I started working my way down the east coast and he said, 'Start with Broward.’ … It was clear, we were running well ahead of where we needed to run, and Jeb said, 'We’re going to win, and we’re going to win big.’ ”
--snip
June 2, 2006
Rove, who is under investigation in the leak of a CIA operative’s identity, thrilled the partisan audience with behind-the-scenes anecdotes in the West Wing or on Air Force One. He recalled his sophisticated computer program to track returns on election night 2004 that contradicted exit polls showing Bush losing in Florida.
“I’ll never forget. The first county I clicked was Hernando. Then Pasco. And about that time, Jeb called in,” Rove recalled. “I started working my way down the east coast and he said, 'Start with Broward.’ … It was clear, we were running well ahead of where we needed to run, and Jeb said, 'We’re going to win, and we’re going to win big.’ ”
--snip
And here they all were, grinning from ear to ear.
November 2, 2004, Bush Family
One thing to remember about Jeb Bush. He is a micromanager in everything he does.
He was acting as a direct liaison between Rove, cousin John Ellis at the FOX election desk in 2000 and all the various operatives, attorneys and judges in both 2000 and 2004.
Here are two more valuable links:
Jeb Bush's Recount Role Examined, July 14, 2001, LA Times
WASHINGTON — When it became clear that the disputed Florida election could deliver the White House to his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush immediately recused himself from any official role in the recount, promising to avoid even the "slightest appearance of a conflict of interest."
He directed his staff to spend their time on government business and pledged to do the same. Vowing that no political work would be done on the taxpayers' dime, six staffers took unpaid leaves to volunteer on the recount.
Despite that hands-off policy, the Florida governor's office in Tallahassee made 95 telephone calls to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, its advisors, lawyers and staffers during the 36-day recount period, records show. At least 10 calls came from an office number used primarily by Jeb Bush, including one call to a private line in George W. Bush's gubernatorial office in Austin.
Another call from Jeb Bush's number went to Karl Rove, his brother's campaign strategist. One went to the Texas governor's chief of staff, Clay Johnson. Another went to Michigan Gov. John Engler, who soon flew to Florida to monitor the ballot recount in Broward County. Additional calls were logged to cell phones assigned to Bush campaign staffers.
In an e-mail this week to The Times, Jeb Bush said he could not recall the purpose of the calls. "I have no clue what these calls were about," he wrote.
"They most likely were return phone calls," Bush added. "In the alternative, they could have been my assistant passing on a request for an invitation to speak or an autographed picture. They might have been answering a request on where to eat in Tallahassee for the hoards [sic] of Austin folks that made their way here. They could have been for many reasons. I don't remember."
.....
He directed his staff to spend their time on government business and pledged to do the same. Vowing that no political work would be done on the taxpayers' dime, six staffers took unpaid leaves to volunteer on the recount.
Despite that hands-off policy, the Florida governor's office in Tallahassee made 95 telephone calls to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, its advisors, lawyers and staffers during the 36-day recount period, records show. At least 10 calls came from an office number used primarily by Jeb Bush, including one call to a private line in George W. Bush's gubernatorial office in Austin.
Another call from Jeb Bush's number went to Karl Rove, his brother's campaign strategist. One went to the Texas governor's chief of staff, Clay Johnson. Another went to Michigan Gov. John Engler, who soon flew to Florida to monitor the ballot recount in Broward County. Additional calls were logged to cell phones assigned to Bush campaign staffers.
In an e-mail this week to The Times, Jeb Bush said he could not recall the purpose of the calls. "I have no clue what these calls were about," he wrote.
"They most likely were return phone calls," Bush added. "In the alternative, they could have been my assistant passing on a request for an invitation to speak or an autographed picture. They might have been answering a request on where to eat in Tallahassee for the hoards [sic] of Austin folks that made their way here. They could have been for many reasons. I don't remember."
.....
Jeb Bush's elephant in the room: Role in Bush v. Gore recount, April 16, 2015, Des Moines Register
Little noticed among Jeb Bush's recently released emails, published on jebemails.com, is this one (Dec. 6, 2000) offering thanks to his brother's future Supreme Court Chief Justice Appointee, John Roberts, for legal advice during the election. "Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate your input on my role in this unique and historic situation," he wrote.
If Bush wants to run for the presidency in 2016, he should answer questions about his involvement, and the media should fact-check and obtain the truth.
Jeb Bush may have a problem in the primaries with his family name because of his father and brother's legacies of the Iraq war and the 2008 recession —issues that may have been handled very differently in a Gore presidency — and now attempts to distance himself from them with the widely covered statement, "I'm my own man." The media has not, however, even mentioned what may be his biggest problem: his level of responsibility in Florida for taking the 2000 election from Gore and the national repercussions.
Bush's communications director in July 2001, Katie Baur, said, "While he recused himself from any involvement in what happened after Nov. 7, he did not recuse himself from his role as a brother." What's not known is that the level of direct involvement was, frankly, enormous. The Los Angeles Times reported on July 14, 2001, "The Florida governor's office in Tallahassee made 95 telephone calls to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, its advisors, lawyers and staffers during the 36-day recount period, records show. At least 10 calls came from an office number used primarily by Jeb Bush."
At least one call from Jeb Bush's number "went to Karl Rove, his brother's campaign strategist. ... One went to the Texas governor's chief of staff, Clay Johnson. Additional calls were logged to cell phones assigned to Bush campaign staffers."
Bush emailed in July 2001: "I have no clue what these calls were about." He had "no clue" of what his own calls were about while his brother was on the cusp of winning or losing the presidency?
.....
Hope this doesn't raise your blood pressure too much, Laura PourMeADrink.....
Broward County, Florida is the largest population of Democratic voters in Florida; it was and is a goldmine of Republican vote theft. With the VERY LARGE numbers of reliable Democratic votes in that county, many thousands of those votes could be shaved away from Dem totals and added to the GOP column, and it would never attract attention. Broward still goes Democratic in the end, but large numbers of Dem votes are nefariously flipped to the Republican tally. All of this quite under the radar, you see.
That is the secret of "Karl's numbers". Oh, yes, he was proud of his "numbers".
Here are Karl Rove and his accomplice Susan B. Ralston, busily "crunching the numbers" on Election Night 2004.
Hat tip to DUer bleever
From 2006, here are two posts of mine on this subject:
Paper ballots and NOT paper trails! This is critical.
"Paper trails" are ONLY used for recount IF, and this is a BIG IF, the election is close or the results questioned. Otherwise, the paper trail records are never examined. This does not help ensure that the machine count is accurate at all.
All the GOP needs to do is skim enough electronic/optically scanned votes from heavily Democratic/minority areas and add them to the GOP column to go undetected. Just like they did in Ohio. And Florida. And New Mexico. And other states. This type of theft would never trigger a recount in the first place, so voila! The paper trail is never examined. And another election is stolen from the people.
I cannot emphasize this enough, because it is the answer.
We MUST vote on a paper ballot in the first place. Then, the paper MUST BE HAND COUNTED at the precinct.
NO MACHINES.
NO MACHINES.
ABSOLUTELY NO MACHINES.
"Paper trails" are ONLY used for recount IF, and this is a BIG IF, the election is close or the results questioned. Otherwise, the paper trail records are never examined. This does not help ensure that the machine count is accurate at all.
All the GOP needs to do is skim enough electronic/optically scanned votes from heavily Democratic/minority areas and add them to the GOP column to go undetected. Just like they did in Ohio. And Florida. And New Mexico. And other states. This type of theft would never trigger a recount in the first place, so voila! The paper trail is never examined. And another election is stolen from the people.
I cannot emphasize this enough, because it is the answer.
We MUST vote on a paper ballot in the first place. Then, the paper MUST BE HAND COUNTED at the precinct.
NO MACHINES.
NO MACHINES.
ABSOLUTELY NO MACHINES.
We must have accurate exit polling that's NOT *corrected*
in the wee hours of the next day, *to fit Karl Rove's new numbers.*
I will NEVER forget that as it happened after midnight on election day, 2004.
Pen and paper ballots.
Unadulterated exit polling.
Hand counts at every precinct.
in the wee hours of the next day, *to fit Karl Rove's new numbers.*
I will NEVER forget that as it happened after midnight on election day, 2004.
Pen and paper ballots.
Unadulterated exit polling.
Hand counts at every precinct.
NEVER Forget.
Jebbie says we got it! Jebbie says we got it!
"It was just the three of us guys handing the phone back and forth--me with the numbers, one of them a governor, the other the president-elect. Now that was cool." ---John Ellis, Bush cousin, working the Fox News Channel election desk on November 7, 2000, as the network unilaterally proclaimed a Bush win at 2:16 am. (Link no longer active)
"It was just the three of us guys handing the phone back and forth--me with the numbers, one of them a governor, the other the president-elect. Now that was cool." ---John Ellis, Bush cousin, working the Fox News Channel election desk on November 7, 2000, as the network unilaterally proclaimed a Bush win at 2:16 am. (Link no longer active)
'There will be blood: Prepare for nasty Jeb Bush — but don’t expect any fingerprints'
When it comes to fixing elections, or 'fixing' the Florida voter registration rolls to make sure only plutocrat lapdogs can get elected, he's the man who can FIX IT!
is er, interesting.
Your comment about the reach of treachery: 
And following not far behind, the gullibility of millions of Americans in taking
any of this family seriously.
... Is how I found aout about the FLA2000 heist. Brilliant investigator Greg Palast opened my eyes to the vile character of the Bush clan.
for 2016, Jeb is over already - unless somebody swaps vote counts in the IA / NH races... 
There is no other conclusion.
link
