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Trump Was Right — in Book, Jeb Credits His Wife for His Immigration Views

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President Bush Is Sworn In For A Second TermIn the first two sentences of Jeb Bush’s book, “Immigration Wars,” the former Florida governor credits his wife Columba with shaping his views on immigration.

That might come as a surprise to some voters, after Bush demanded that Donald Trump apologize Wednesday night for making the same point.

Bush was asked during CNN’s Republican primary debate what he thought about Trump’s statement to CNN in July: “If my wife were from Mexico, I think I would have a soft spot for people from Mexico.”

Bush, whose wife was born and raised in Mexico, demanded an apology from the real estate mogul.

Despite Bush’s apparent irritation, in the opening lines of his 2013 book, “Immigration Wars,” he admitted that his wife Columba had in fact shaped his views on immigration. (Read more from “Trump Was Right — in Book, Jeb Credits His Wife for His Immigration Views” HERE)

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How Jeb Bush Would’ve Saved $3M With His Own Tax Plan

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102986166-IMG_5393r.530x298All kinds of people will have lower taxes if Jeb Bush gets his way with the tax code—especially those who earn the sort of money the candidate himself has.

In fact, a Big Crunch analysis of the most recent six years of Bush’s tax returns available suggest he would have saved more than $3 million, had his proposals had been enacted at the time.

In 2013 alone, the most recent year available, Bush would have saved nearly $800,000 of the nearly $3 million he paid the federal government in taxes. Most of that would have come from wages and business, which account for 91 percent of his total taxable income.

In June, Bush released 33 years of tax returns—more than any other major presidential candidate in history. The returns show his business growth as a real estate player in Florida, the drop in income when he took office as governor, and sky-rocketing income as a consultant and speaker in the years since leaving office.

“On the top end you have businesses that allow you to take a lot of expense deductions that the lower end doesn’t have,” said Timothy Gagnon, faculty director for the MST and MSA online programs at Northeastern University. “If I’m an average guy and I buy the Boston Globe, I just pay for it, but if I need the Boston Globe to keep up with business affairs, I get to deduct it.” (Read more from “How Jeb Bush Would’ve Saved $3M With His Own Tax Plan” HERE)

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Top 1% Are Biggest Winners in Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan

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BN-KF556_BUSHTA_G_20150909153905Jeb Bush has been highlighting the benefits of his new tax plan for the middle class, which in many cases are considerable. But by some measures the biggest winners would be – well, winners.

A new analysis by the business-backed Tax Foundation shows that the biggest percentage increases in after-tax income under Mr. Bush’s tax plan would go to the top 1% of earners, people making more than about $406,000. They would see their after-tax incomes increase on average by 11.6%, according to the analysis. That’s the biggest change for any income group.

The average for all income levels would be a 3.3% increase in income. The second-biggest beneficiaries would be folks in the top 10%, those making more than about $117,000. Their incomes would go up by 4.7%.

The benefits to the top 1% would be even higher when the full economic impacts of the change are considered, according to the Tax Foundation analysis.

To some degree, this result is expected, given Mr. Bush’s stated objectives. He’s trying to use his plan to boost anemic economic growth. And given the way economic models work, tax plans almost have to lower taxes on business- and investment-related income in order to get the desired growth effects. For good or ill, the top 1% tend to receive a lot of that kind of income, and thus benefit disproportionately from any tax reductions. (Read more from “Top 1% Are Biggest Winners in Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan” HERE)

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Donald Trump Fires Back at Bush: He Should Lead by Speaking English While in the U.S.

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Trump-Nashville-Getty-640x4802016 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump told Breitbart News that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush should be speaking English—not the Spanish he spoke to attack Trump in Miami this week—on the campaign trail.

Trump had harsh words for Sen. Marco Rubio in this interview as well and lit into the donor class, all while saying that the “silent majority” in America is waking up and fighting to take back the country from the political class.

Trump also predicted that he will not only win the White House in 2016, but that he will be re-elected in 2020–predicting he will be a two-term president–and that at the end of his eventual eight years in the White House he will be known to all as a “great conservative” just like Ronald Reagan.

“I like Jeb,” Trump said. “He’s a nice man. But he should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.”

“El hombre no es conservador,” Bush said in Spanish of Trump in Miami, according to the Tampa Bay Times. That means, according to that newspaper, that Bush is saying of Trump: “The man is not conservative.” (Read more from “Donald Trump Fires Back at Bush: He Should Lead by Speaking English While in the U.S.” HERE)

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Why Jeb’s Flip-Flopping Charges Against Trump May Flop [+videos]

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trump_y_bush.jpg_1718483346Facing a barrage of attacks from Donald Trump, Jeb Bush is going nuclear on the Republican presidential front-runner by trying to paint him as a closeted liberal. A web video released Tuesday by the former Florida governor splices old clips of Trump expressing liberal positions.

The flip-flopper charge has been devastating to some past presidential candidates. But experts in the political science of flip-flopping doubt Jeb’s attacks will damage Trump.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if these attacks are less effective than you’d think,” said political scientist Robert Van Houweling, who co-authored a 2012 paper with Michael Tomz about the effects of “political repositioning” on voting. “He’s moving towards the primary electorate and a lot of people in the primary electorate will welcome that.”

Bush’s video features Trump calling himself pro-choice in 1999, identifying “more as a Democrat” in 2004 and praising Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton while she was a senator from New York. The video emphasizes Trump’s statements that he’s from New York . . .

Trump responded by assailing Bush for a “flailing campaign” and reiterating in two follow-up tweets his claim that the Floridian is beholden to his donors. Later Tuesday he posted an Instagram video with 2013 footage of a Jeb speech honoring Hillary Clinton’s public service.

No more Clintons or Bushes!

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on

(Read more from “Why Jeb’s Flip-Flopping Charges Against Trump May Flop” HERE)

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Will Mitt Romney Jump in the Presidential Race?

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Mitt Romney Campaigns For Michigan GOP CandidatesThere is on the edge of the spectrum a thought awakening that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who ran for President in 2008 and 2012, might get back in the race. It comes naturally to think so. Before the race got seriously underway Mr. Romney met with Jeb Bush to consider their fates. Mr. Romney’s wife Ann went so far back then as to suggest on Cavuto that If Jeb ran, Mitt would stay out, as they both represented a similar center of establishment principles and would appeal to the same donor base. This past week, three of Mr. Bush’s key advisors have slipped away as Mr. Trump has made unprecedented advances in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the three states, as former Governor of Texas Rick Perry has said recently, where the race to 2016 is to be won.

As Mr. Trump rises, and the Real Clear Politics current average has him ahead of the pack in New Hampshire at 28.3 percent, he rises at the expense of Mr. Bush, who is at nine percent in the same poll.

So as the “establishment” candidate, Mr. Bush, is suddenly being viewed as circling the drain, the frantic call goes out to Mr. Romney to enter and save the day.

But Mr. Romney is not now and has never been exactly an “Eastern Establishment” candidate, to which Jeb Bush and his famous political family form and fulfill the archetype. He brings a somewhat different political ethic and conservative moral base to the Republican party, in my opinion, a heightened, seasoned and more mature sensibility and Republicans should be delighted to have him.

For it is the current conservative standard that is killing Jeb; a standard advanced to the apogee of provincial incompetence by brother W., sure to be fully outlined in Dick Cheney’s new book, “Exceptional: Why the world needs a powerful America.” Mr. Romney is not now and has never been exactly an “Eastern Establishment” candidate, to which Jeb Bush and his famous political family form and fulfill the archetype. (Read more from “Will Mitt Romney Jump in the Presidential Race?” HERE)

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Pro-Jeb Plane Flies Anti-Trump Banner Across Trump’s Bama Rally and It BACKFIRES Big Time

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Jeb-BushFellow 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush tried to steal Donald Trump’s thunder in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday, but the move proved to be full of hot air.

As Trump electrified the largest crowd of the presidential campaign season to date, the pro-Bush Right to Rise super-PAC launched a banner message to fly over the event on a small plane.

The message read “Trump 4 Higher Taxes, Jeb 4 Prez.”

[Here’s how social media responded:]

(Read more from “Pro-Jeb Plane Flies Anti-Trump Banner Across Trump’s Bama Rally and It BACKFIRES Big Time” HERE)

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Jeb Bush: NSA Needs Broader Powers to Combat ‘Evildoers’

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Jeb BushRepublican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat “evildoers.”

At a national security forum in the early voting state of South Carolina, Bush put himself at odds with Republican congressional leaders who earlier this year voted to end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records.

The former Florida governor said Congress should revisit its changes to the Patriot Act, and he dismissed concerns from civil libertarians who say the program violated citizens’ constitutionally protected privacy rights. (Read more from “Jeb Bush: NSA Needs Broader Powers to Combat ‘Evildoers'” HERE)

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Just Stay Home If 2016 Brings Another Bush-Clinton Election

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0-isil-terrorists-injured-in-mosul-by-us-airstrikeHillary Clinton and Jeb Bush share more than membership to political dynasties and Washington-establishment ideals. According to a new analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, 17 of the nation’s wealthiest citizens have donated to both Clinton’s and Bush’s presidential campaigns.

From the analysis, conducted by Vocative and The Daily Beast:

More than 60 ultra-rich Americans have contributed to both Jeb Bush’s and Hillary Clinton’s federal campaigns, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by Vocativ and The Daily Beast. Seventeen of those contributors have gone one step further and opened their wallets to fund both Bush’s and Clinton’s 2016 ambitions.

After all, why support just Hillary Clinton or just Jeb Bush when you can hedge your bets and donate to both? This seems to be the thinking of a group of powerful men and women—racetrack owners, bankers, media barons, chicken magnates, hedge funders (and their spouses). Some of them have net worths that can eclipse the GDPs of small countries.

(Read more from “Just Stay Home If 2016 Brings Another Bush-Clinton Election” HERE)

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The Duopoly at Work: Mega Donors Are Happy With Either Bush or Clinton, Donate to Both

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47958352.cachedFor some wealthy donors, it doesn’t matter who takes the White House in 2016—as long as the president’s name is Clinton or Bush.

More than 60 ultra-rich Americans have contributed to both Jeb Bush’s and Hillary Clinton’s federal campaigns, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by Vocativ and The Daily Beast. Seventeen of those contributors have gone one step further and opened their wallets to fund both Bush’s and Clinton’s 2016 ambitions.

After all, why support just Hillary Clinton or just Jeb Bush when you can hedge your bets and donate to both? This seems to be the thinking of a group of powerful men and women—racetrack owners, bankers, media barons, chicken magnates, hedge funders (and their spouses). Some of them have net worths that can eclipse the GDPs of small countries.

Larry Noble, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast that it’s a common practice among a small number of people.

“Some of them will say they believe in the process, but the truth is you usually see them giving to people who will be most helpful to them if [the politician] gets into office,” he said. “They are not necessarily Republicans or Democrats, they are business people first.” (Read more from “The Duopoly at Work: Mega Donors Are Happy With Either Bush or Clinton, Donate to Both” HERE)

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