And yet our own corporate fundamentalism does just as much damage, and arguably much more in its own disgusting way.

Answer:  maybe, at least some of them.  

But contrary to popular perception, it's not just members of the party's establishment wing who are urging the former Florida governor to considering running. More quietly, prominent social conservatives are also nudging him toward a White House bid.

"Jeb Bush is an attractive candidate for evangelicals that adhere to a pro-faith family and religious freedom agenda," the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, who serves as president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told RealClearPolitics. "He resonates on multiple levels. His optics on faith, his strong narrative as it pertains to his conservative leadership in Florida -- those credentials speak for themselves."

One of the nation's most influential Hispanic evangelical leaders, Rodriguez cited Bush's appeal to religious minority groups that have been "discouraged by the Republican Party" as a particularly enticing prospect for the GOP.

SNIP

His vocal and longstanding support for immigration reform, in particular, may be a political winner in a general election setting, but it harkens back to the breach in party orthodoxy that helped sink Rick Perry's White House hopes in 2012.

But many religious conservative leaders have in recent years become more vocal in supporting the emotionally charged issue of immigration reform. Leading pro-immigration voices on the Christian right such as Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, have drawn explicit comparisons between Jesus' treatment of foreigners and how the U.S. should welcome outsiders.

And a Pew Research poll conducted last year found that 62 percent of white evangelical Christians believe unauthorized immigrants should be granted a way to stay in the country.

The problem is that, even more than Willard Romney was, Jeb Bush remains the walking definition of electoral schizophrenia. The Base has no use for him. The family brand is still dinged up, perhaps beyond repair; everyone from the activist left to the Tea Party right has one reason or another to be sick of the Bush family. The only thing Jeb has going for him is the thing that will doom him in the primaries -- his occasional forays into mock moderation. And I haven't even brought up his craven performance in helping to turn the death of Terri Schiavo into a media circus complete with bomb scares at elementary schools and death threats against judges. I offer this as an "act of love," Jeb. Don't listen to them. Stay home.

And if the Sioux take it down, change the name of the mountain and never let a white man (or black yellow green etc) step foot on the land no big deal.

The U.S. is offering a cash settlement that as of this writing stands at $1.4 billion, which the Sioux have rejected. Further, if one goes back to the initial 1875 federal offer to purchase the Black Hills, the Sioux have refused such cash offers for 139 years now, and have repeatedly stated that they want the Black Hills returned to them. And for their part, local white residents fear being displaced from their homes, should the tribes' sovereignty of the region be restored.

And for all this, we can thank the vainglorious and intemperate Brig. Gen. (Brev.) George Armstrong Custer. Because 140 years ago in the spring of 1874, and on his own volition, he led the 7th Cavalry into the Black Hills illegally, under the ruse that the regiment was railroad surveyors exploring a proposed new route for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

In reality, Custer's incursion was really the initial step in an ultimately successful land grab of the Black Hills on behalf of U.S. gold mining interests. It was also, as the Sioux attempted to point out to President Grant and his administration in their subsequent requests that Custer's troops and the accompanying miners be removed from Indian lands, a clear violation of the provisions of the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, which had awarded the Black Hills to the Sioux in perpetuity only six years earlier.

That set in motion a subsequent, predictable and quite tragic chain of events, which two years later quite rightly cost the flamboyant but headstrong Custer and 260 men under his command their lives at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and led to the present legal circumstances which exist today in the Black Hills.

"I pass through the land of Custer's Last Stand and I grin.
So this is where Old Yellow Hair's Ghost Dance begins."
-- John Hiatt, "Your Love Is My Rest" (Walk On, 1995)

For his part, Gen. Custer made a series of horrible blunders in the hours leading up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. Initially, he made a conscious decision to ignore the direct orders of his superior Gen. Phil Sheridan that the 7th Cavalry was only to reconnoiter and fix the exact location of the Indians, and was not to engage them before the rest of Sheridan's command could arrive and deploy.

Secondly, once his scouts had located the site of the vast Indian encampment along the Little Bighorn, where the Sioux and their allies had retreated following their initial successful repulse of attacking Army columns commanded by Gen. George Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud one week earlier, Custer made no effort whatsoever to ascertain the size of that village or the number of warriors he might be facing. Rather, he made an impetuous and reckless decision to immediately attack the Indians head-on, even as his own scouts pleaded with him not to do so because the Indians were now aware that the 7th was on top of them.

Finally and most fatally, in the face of his own ignorance regarding the true size of the opposing force facing him, which some modern estimates place at well over four times his own strength, Custer then further divided his 600-man regiment into three separate columns, by battalion. Leaving one column with his supply train, he sent the other two scurrying off in entirely different directions, each out of contact with the other (and leading one column of troops himself), in a foolhardy attempt to envelop an encampment of some 12,000 to 15,000 Indians, which further included perhaps 3,000 very well-armed warriors.

"Benteen: Come quick! Big village! Bring pacs! P.S.: Bring pacs!!"
-- The final handwritten communique sent by Gen. George A. Custer, to Capt. Will Benteen at the 7th's supply train (June 25, 1876)

The tremendous disparity in opposing forces was such that the battle's outcome was never in doubt at any time. Custer and his own column of 215 men were quickly overwhelmed well before they could ever locate the Indians' left flank, and by some estimates were completely wiped out within thirty minutes of their initial contact with the 2,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse, as they realized their folly and vainly attempted to entrench themselves along the bluffs overlooking the Little Bighorn River and the village itself.

The 175 soldiers of the other attacking column led by Major Marcus Reno were easily and simultaneously repulsed by the 1,000-plus Sioux and Arapaho warriors who had remained to defend the right flank of the vast Indian encampment. The survivors in Reno's command were then driven back upon the remaining column under the command of Captain Will Benteen, which was advancing per Custer's orders from the rear with the 7th Cavalry's supply train. Together, they hunkered down at a place now called Reno's Hill, where the remnants of the 7th Cavalry were then besieged by the Indian allies.

"I am only too proud to say that I thoroughly despised the man."
-- Capt. Will Benteen, speaking about his late superior Gen. Custer before a U.S. military commission convened to investigate the Little Bighorn disaster.

Having lost 46 men of their own with another 103 wounded in this terribly ill-considered assault, these remaining 440 soldiers escaped with their lives only because the warriors engaged them for as long as it took the thousands of Indian non-combatants to pack up their encampment and retreat, before departing the battlefield themselves. They knew full well that Gen. Sheridan and his own 2,000-strong column were only two days behind Custer and fast approaching.

Ironically, and unfortunately for the Sioux Nation and its allies, their success at the Little Bighorn had disastrous long-term consequences regarding their possession of the Black Hills, because the first news of Gen. Custer's horrific debacle finally arrived on the east coast some nine days later, on July 4, 1876 -- which, of course, coincided with the very culmination of the United States' own centennial celebrations.

Upon hearing the news, which quickly overshadowed the ongoing public patriotic events, people were at first stunned and then enraged at what happened to the 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn. That anger quickly gave way to a grim national determination to give the Sioux and their allies no quarter, and to avenge the so-called massacre of U.S. troops at the hands of red savages.

It was therefore inevitable that the Indians would be soon defeated by the winter of the following year, their lands duly confiscated, and most survivors exiled to the Standing Rock and Pine Ridge reservations in Dakota Territory.

A sizable group of about 1,200 Sioux led by Sitting Bull sought the protection of the British Crown by fleeing to Canada. But the British and Canadians didn't want them, and while they made no attempt to drive them out they also did nothing to help them. By 1881, Sitting Bull and his people had drifted south and back into U.S. territory, where they were subsequently rounded up and also sent to the Dakota reservations.

In the meantime, the federal government declared that the Black Hills were in forfeit by the Sioux for a war which the Indians had neither sought nor commenced, and had fought only because they had been wrongly attacked by federal troops in the first place.

That's a quick historical background regarding how this most regrettable current impasse over the Black Hills came about.

I guess that all of a sudden you have become a fan of organized religion.

I am certainly in favor of the Lacota getting all their land back, and treble damages of the value the sacred gold that was removed.

Also, it would be fine for me if the Lacota erased the presidents from their sacred site and put up as many Native American heroes or gods.

Got it, you were using the Monument to start a discussion about US citizens historic and current decimation of Native Americans and their culture.

They didn't all practice cannibalism anymore than all red staters wear white hoods and blow up churches.

But that was all so late 17th century, and white people have sure come a long way since then. How about the base enslavement of millions of people in the United States until 1865 because of their skin color, and their subsequent wholesale repression and discrimination for another century-plus thereafter? Or the wanton slaughter and extermination of millions upon millions of people throughout continental Europe from 1940 to 1945, for no reason other their ethnicity and religion?

Does the fact that both southern European-Americans and Germans considered themselves at the time to be the most civilized and cultured peoples in their respective regions of the world, somehow excuse or mitigate the barbarous acts they visited upon other human beings?

Your supposition of white European cultural superiority is as big a crock as your argument that climate change is somehow a hoax.

Mano a mano, the only primary practical advantages that white people of European descent enjoyed over Native Americans in the Western Hemisphere and other indigenous peoples in the Pacific and Africa were their population numbers, their firearms and their innate physical immunity to certain diseases such as measles and chicken pox. Period.

But quite honestly, all that's neither here nor there with due regard to the actual topic we had been discussing previously, which was the legal disposition of claims to title the nine tribes constituting the Sioux Nation have staked upon the Black Hills region in the north-central United States. And based upon our nation's own laws, per the U.S. Supreme Court's 1980 ruling in U.S. v. Sioux Nation, those claims have been upheld as legitimate.

Therefore, the current argument in that case centers not upon validity, but rather remedy. All other extraneous arguments about the fates suffered by other native peoples -- and whether you consider those fates to have been pre-ordained or otherwise -- are completely and totally irrelevant.

And in this particular instance, those arguments have served only to envelop both you and squeaky fully in your own rhetorical dust clouds, and thus obscure the core issue in your own minds.

Sometimes, I wonder whether some people actually prefer it that way, in order to avoid having to confront the conundrums posed by their own logic.

Visiting Grant's Farm

We have a wide variety of attractions - perfect for all ages - at Grant's Farm! Park in our visitor's parking lot and head towards the stables at the end of the lot to visit the home of the world-renowned Budweiser Clydesdales. Hop aboard our tram (located across the street and in front of the General's Store) and take a guided tour throughout our 160-acre Deer Park to learn about the history of Grant's Farm, see Grant's Cabin, and meet the diverse array of animals living there. The tram will drop all guests off at our Tier Garten to enjoy goat feeding, carousel rides, animal and elephant shows and camel rides. For adults 21 and over, a sample of an Anheuser-Busch product is provided to taste and enjoy. We look forward to your visit!  

I think there will be some clues how this is going to go - Jeb's already been out there giving more speeches, and I think he had a little one-on-one with Adelson, if I'm not mistaken.  If the media can't have Christie v. Clinton, I think they'd be just as happy to have Bush v. Clinton - so keep an eye on what the media's doing, because that's going to drive a lot of this, I think.

As an exercise in political handicapping, this is all mildly entertaining; the reality that the election is going to set a course for the country for the next however-many years continues to be a lot less entertaining, and a lot more depressing.  If there's a bigger establishment candidate than Hillary Clinton, I don't know who it would be, and honestly, if there's an organization that needs shaking up, an establishment that needs new and more liberal blood, it's gotta be the Democratic party.

If he's middle of the road to popular then Hillary could walk away with it.

If the country is fed up with him then she has a big hill to climb, unless the republican is a total loser but I don't foresee that.

See 1992, 2000, 2008 as my evidence.

Even a personally popular Clinton couldn't push Gore over the finish line.

 A fed up nation put Obama in the Whitehouse rather easily.

A happy nation essentially gave Reagan a third term by putting Bush in the Whitehouse.

Dems are kidding themselves if they see Hillary as anything other then a Wahington insider who comes with tons of political and historical baggage.  

She will have a tough narrative to make that her policies will be different then Obamas if Obama is still stuck in the low 40's when it comes time for his theoretical re-election.

What if Obamacare is still a disaster?  How does the inventor of Hillarycare claim she'll be the person to fix the fledgling federal program?  What if were still stuck in neutral after eights years of Obamas economic stewardship?  How does she separate herself from his foreign policy?

In addition with her political notoriety comes a history of votes, actions and narratives and Mrs. Clinton has plenty.   Some good, some bad.  Depending on your point of view of course.

How does she attack Jeb for being a Bush when she is a Clinton?  Another Dem could make the argument and Jeb has never served in Washington.   All the sudden she is more of the same and he is the Washington outsider who will fix what ails us.

I would not have believed that a blithering idiot like his brother could have won against someone as seemingly intelligent and experienced as Gore.

And that goes for GHW Bush too.

And that goes for Reagan.

All laughable.

Yet they won.

Betsey Stevenson, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged to reporters that the 77-cent figure did not reflect equal pay for equal work. "Seventy-seven cents captures the annual earnings of full-time, full-year women divided by the annual earnings of full-time, full-year men," she said. "There are a lot of things that go into that 77-cents figure, there are a lot of things that contribute and no one's trying to say that it's all about discrimination, but I don't think there's a better figure."

SNIP

From a political perspective, the Census 77-cent figure is golden. Unless women stop getting married and having children, and start abandoning careers in childhood education for naval architecture, this huge gap in wages will almost certainly persist. Democrats thus can keep bringing it up every two years.

There appears to be some sort of wage gap and closing it is certainly a worthy goal. But it's a bit rich for the president to repeatedly cite this statistic as an "embarrassment." (His line in the April 8 speech was almost word for word what he said in the 2014 State of the Union address.) The president must begin to acknowledge that average annual wages does not begin to capture what is actually happening in the work force and society.

Thus we are boosting the rating on this factoid to Two Pinocchios. We were tempted to go one step further to Three Pinocchios, but the president is relying on an official government statistic-and there are problems and limitations with the other calculations as well.