President Jeb Bush Will Kill Food Stamps And Welfare, Substitute Them With Man-Woman Marriage
“Marriage matters when it comes to reducing poverty and increasing opportunity,” Jeb Bush says.
Jeb Bush has unveiled a new policy statement that would kill the top federal programs that provide food and financial support for some of the most-needy families – including children – in America. The Republican former Florida governor announced Friday that as president, he would eliminate the federal food stamps program known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
Combined, these programs serve an estimated 50 million Americans with about $90 billion in support annually and are credited with literally helping to keep Americans alive, housed, clothed, and fed. If anything, we should be investing more dollars, not less, into these vital programs.
In 2015 overall, SNAP provided about 46 million people an average of $126.83 per month (yes, per month, not week).
In March of 2015, about three million children were the beneficiaries of TANF.
In short, Bush would literally take food out of children’s mouths, and substitute those federal programs with ones that promote heterosexual marriage.
“Marriage matters when it comes to reducing poverty and increasing opportunity,” Bush’s new policy states. “Children raised in married, intact families do better than children raised in single parent families on a whole host of measures, including graduation rates, criminal justice involvement and earnings as adults. But too often in discussions of poverty, this vital issue is left out of the discussion. It won’t be in my administration.”
An intact family is defined as “a nuclear family in which membership has remained constant, in the absence of divorce or other divisive factors,” generally referring to biological, i.e., male and female parents who marry and raise children. Bush didn’t need to include the “intact” distinction, but chose to.
“As president, I will join with other political leaders, educators and civic leaders to promote marriage as the most reliable route to family stability and resources,” Bush continues.Â
Despite Jeb Bush’s repeated claims that he is his own man and would not be the same president that his brother was, this new policy of promoting (heterosexual) marriage is exactly what President George W. Bush did, to the tune of $500 million, at minimum. And it failed.
WATCH:Â Jeb Bush Says ‘There Are No Radical Christians’
A 2007 study concluded:
Government marriage promotion efforts emerged from and reinforce the work of rightist fatherhood groups and Christian Right organizations.
The arguments in favor of marriage and fatherhood promotion as a cure for poverty are ultimately ideological in nature. There is no solid evidence from the social sciences that marriage results in a higher income for poor women.
Government marriage promotion experiments are funded at the expense of proven poverty relief programs.
Government marriage promotion initiatives are intertwined with the dramatic erosion of Church/State separation under the Bush Administration’s faith-based initiatives.
The arguments for government marriage promotion programs often reflect racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes, and the programs themselves disproportionately target communities of color – especially African Americans.
Bush also claims, wrongly, that the federal welfare system he would kill, “penalizes work, hurts families and creates countless opportunities for graft and abuse,” and “trap families in perpetual poverty.”
“In the place of these failed programs, states will be given Right to Rise Grants. These grants will allow states to meet the needs of poor families, in the way that makes most sense in each state.”
Jon Green at AmericaBlog rightly notes that states would have the option to not set up these grant programs at all.
With SNAP and TANF dead, tens of millions of Americans, including children, would literally be left starving to death.
Green adds, “the poor won’t starve Bush argues, if only they get their sexual houses in order and shack up with the right people.”
“Gutting one of the most successful anti-poverty programs we currently have and replacing it with Catholic social teaching is a nice effort, but it’s likely too little, too late to put him back in contention,” Green concludes.
Bush, it should be noted, is the son and great-grandson U.S. presidents, comes from tremendous wealth, and has never displayed any understanding of what eliminating these programs would do.
A few months ago, his campaign flailing, Jeb! announced a rebranding and retooling initiative known as “Jeb Can Fix It.” It failed.
For the sake of the lives and well-being of tens of millions of Americans, so should Jeb Bush’s campaign for president.
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EARLIER:
Watch: Colbert Mocks The End Of Jeb’s ‘Jeb!’
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Jeb Bush: If ‘You’re A Christian You Can Prove You’re A Christian’
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The imagery is dark. The words are defiant. The message is dystopian. An ad for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis‘s presidential campaign, currently “in turmoil,” features the First Lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, issuing a warning: “They’re coming after our children.”
The ad never quite says who is coming after the kids, but the video (below) includes clips of President Joe Biden and former Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the war on COVID and the now-retired Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
While it was first released over the summer, it received little attention. Casey DeSantis on Friday reposted her “Mamas for DeSantis” ad. It comes in the wake of the alleged ménage à trois sex scandal involving an unnamed woman who has accused Christian Ziegler, the head of the Florida Republican Party of rape. His wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, who reportedly confirmed the consensual three-way sexual relationship, is Casey DeSantis’ “best friend,” according to Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch.
“In America, we’ve witnessed a lot and put up with enough,” Casey DeSantis says in a voiceover at the start of the two-and-a-half minute video.
“We’ve been forced into silence,” she charges, amid a baby crying and a COVID mask being put over a child’s face. “Into compliance.”
“Told that we must ‘trust the science,'” DeSantis continues, in a direct attack on Dr. Fauci, showing him speaking during the height of COVID in the Trump administration.
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And in an attack on LGBTQ children and adults, she says: “We’ve been told that we must deny truth. Back down. And look the other way.”
“Enough is enough. When you come after our kids, we fight back. Because there’s nothing we won’t do to protect our children,” she says.
Seconds later, the video shows President Joe Biden declaring, “Our nation’s children are all our children.”
“We will not allow you to exploit their innocence to advance your agenda. We are no longer silent,” Casey DeSantis declares. “We are united. We have finally found our fighter.”
Casey DeSantis praises her husband, saying he will do for America what he did for Florida: “Schools: opened. Parents’ rights: defended. School choice: universal. Critical race theory: prohibited. DEI: stopped. Child mutilation: illegal. Girls’ sports: saved. Communities: protected. Our economy: growing. And freedom: guaranteed.”
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In the section where President Biden says, “Our nation’s children are all our children,” Casey DeSantis doesn’t explain that those words came from a White House celebration honoring Teachers of The Year from across the country. The President was praising an Oklahoma Teacher of the Year whose district includes students who speak 62 different languages, so she had to work hard to ensure everyone felt included. She had said, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child.”
Nor did DeSantis acknowledge that Governor DeSantis’ performance for children has been poor.
The Florida Policy Institute, which says it is “an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization,” in September warned “368,728 youth aged 20 and younger” have been cut from Medicaid. “Because Florida has not expanded Medicaid, the vast majority of those losing insurance during this time have been children, parents, young adults, and new mothers.”
Florida ranks 35th in child well-being (with 1 being the best), according WUSF, citing the Kids Count Databook from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Some critics on social media blasted Casey DeSantis’ remarks.
“Republicans refused to extend child tax credits that pulled 2 million children out of poverty. They resist the idea of free school lunches. Yet they come up with bullshit about their opponents ‘coming after our children.’ Yes, we’re coming after them, to give them a sandwich,” wrote former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob.
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Watch the Casey DeSantis video below or at this link.
The stakes are high. They’re coming after our children.
We need a fighter who will defend the innocence of our children and protect the rights of parents.
That’s @RonDeSantis.
He showed it on the debate stage, and he’s the only one with the proven track record to back it up. pic.twitter.com/3Gyezc18L8
— Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) December 8, 2023
A Washington, D.C. federal appeals court Friday afternoon largely upheld and reinstated U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s very narrow and limited gag order on Donald Trump for his trial on charges related to his alleged efforts to subvert the U.S. Constitution and overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“We agree with the district court that some aspects of Mr. Trump’s public statements pose a significant and imminent threat to the fair and orderly adjudication of the ongoing criminal proceeding, warranting a speech-constraining protective order,” reads Judge Patricia Millett unanimous three-judge panel ruling, posted by Lawfare’s Anna Bower. “The district court’s order, however, sweeps in more protected speech than is necessary. For that reason, we affirm the district court’s order in part and vacate it in part.”
The judges upheld the gag order “to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”
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They also upheld the gag order “to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the Special Counsel, (2) members of the court’s staff and counsel’s staffs, or (3) the family members of any counsel or staff member—if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staff’s work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is highly likely to result.”
The judges removed from the gag order “speech beyond those specified categories.”
“We do not allow such an order lightly,” the judges added. “But Mr. Trump is also an indicted criminal defendant, and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants.”
Bower explains, “Chutkan’s order would have prohibited statements that refer to special counsel Jack Smith as a ‘thug’ or ‘deranged.’ But the appeals court order does not apply to speech about the special counsel himself.”
CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane sums up the ruling: “Much of the gag order in Donald Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy criminal case in DC is *REINSTATED*.”
READ MORE: Peter Doocy Admits No ‘Concrete Evidence Joe Biden Personally Profited’ From Hunter’s Business
In a report focused on House Republicans’ plan to vote on a resolution to open an official impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy told viewers there is no evidence of impeachable offenses.
“The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years, and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter’s overseas business but they are going to try again with this impeachment inquiry set to start next week,” Doocy, who often criticizes President Biden in White House press briefings, said Friday on Fox News Business.
Other news outlets this week have also stressed Republicans have come up empty-handed.
The right-leaning news outlet The Hill, reporting on the resolution Thursday, noted Republicans’ current investigation “has struggled to connect President Biden to the activities of his son, and they’ve failed to prove their most salacious allegation — and the one that would be most key for impeachment: that the president accepted a bribe.”
READ MORE: Jobs Report Forces Fox News to Admit Biden Economy ‘A Lot Stronger Than Anybody Understands’
One of the main pillars of Republicans’ allegations against President Biden, the “narrative that President Biden pushed Ukraine to fire its prosecutor to help his son, who served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burimsa, has largely been refuted,” The Hill also reported.
“Republicans have engaged in wide-ranging inquiry into Mr. Biden for months,” The New York Times reported Tuesday, “hunting for evidence to back up their allegations that he corruptly profited from his family members’ overseas business dealings and accepted bribes. To date, they have failed to deliver compelling evidence to back up their boldest claims.”
Watch Doocy below or at this link.
Peter Doocy: “The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years, and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter’s overseas business.” pic.twitter.com/a5N44hIRrQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2023
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Peter Doocy Admits No ‘Concrete Evidence Joe Biden Personally Profited’ From Hunter’s Business
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