Jeb Bush said angrily: " CSX was no secret deal ... I resent the implication,"”

[madfloridian]

Jeb Bush was speaking at Southeastern University in Central Florida. I hear he was surprised he was questioned so bluntly about the CSX deal that will pretty effectively destroy future plans for several Central Florida cities.

Catching Up with Jeb

For those who listened more to the pitter-patter of rain than the local news, Jeb Bush was in Lakeland yesterday. No, not to apologize for perpetuating a pestilence upon the people of Polk County. He was here to discuss "leadership."

Bush was surprised to find that reporters in Lakeland were not welcoming him home with Nerf ball questions. They wanted to discuss CSX. They were even polite, and asked if they could ask first.

One of the exchanges was as followed.

Bush, in Lakeland as a speaker for two Southeastern University events, was asked after his afternoon speech if he had time to answer questions.

He said he wouldn't if the questions were about CSX.

..."“There was no secret deal ... I resent the implication,” Bush said angrily. “I believe a significant number of people in this community support the thousands of jobs it will bring.” -- Polk County News Blog

The $491 million deal with CSX Transportation is a very big, potentially very damaging for several cities. They have had no say in the planning at all. In fact the deal was made that CSX could go ahead with whatever it wanted to do before the cities ever had a chance to plan.

CSX is taking over areas of Central Florida with little or no oversight.

WINTER HAVEN - State planning officials have told CSX it can begin building a rail transfer center before planning reviews of the massive project are completed. In a letter sent to CSX this week, the state Department of Community Affairs said it would consider an agreement with the company that would allow CSX to begin construction on the Winter Haven project while a comprehensive planning review known as a development of regional impact is under way."

The deal is so serious and so flawed that a top Florida Republican, the husband to a state senator...wrote a long and damning op ed about Jeb's involvement. As usual Jeb escaped from the scrutiny unscathed. He always does.

Top Florida Republican accuses Jeb Bush of brokering the harmful CSX deal...

Whether it is the good fortune of having your buddy Gov. Jeb Bush honchoing a deal for you or whether CSX CEO Michael Ward is simply a good negotiator, it pays handsome dividends.

In November 2004, CSX executives made a half-billion-dollar pitch to Bush's Florida Department of Transportation. That pitch is now being played out in an impending agreement to pay CSX $491 million of taxpayers' money to move some of its freight trains off what they call the A Line, running down the east central part of Florida to Orlando over to the S Line, running down through west central Florida: Gainesville, Ocala, Plant City and Lakeland. The terminus is Winter Haven, where CSX wants to build a huge intermodal logistics center.

The payoff for CSX's Ward was $36 million in salary and benefits paid to him in 2005 and 2006.

Much of the funding for the $491 million, a first-of-a-kind deal for a private company, was accomplished in the 2005 session of the Florida Legislature. The Tampa Tribune reported in its Nov. 28 edition that few legislators knew of the Bush-backed Senate Bill 360 where the funding was inserted just before midnight on the last day of the legislative session, May 6.

Perhaps it's worth knowing that Ward's CSX predecessor was John Snow, who left CSX to head up theU.S. Treasury Department for Gov. Bush's brother, President George W. Bush.

It helps to have friends in high places.

To top off the damage and lack of concern for Central Florida, the State Department of Transportation used one of the companies involved in the deal to prove it was good for taxpayers.

[jody]

1. I remember the deal between Jeb and Ken Lay of Enron fame to privatize water in FL. That was no

secret deal either!

Families have robbed and pillaged in America before but, none so blatantly as the Bush Evil Empire.

[DemoTex]

4. Folks tend to forget Ken Lay's old corporate tie to Florida: Florida Gas & Light.

Pre-Enron, pre-Transco. It was in the old Jack Bowen days. They all came to Houston from FP&L and to Transco .. Bowen, Lay, Lay's secretary Linda, Lay's crazy wife who he would commit to an asylum to marry young Linda. I was there. I saw the whole sordid thing. I was Ken Lay's corporate pilot, but that's long ago news at DU!

BTW: Always willing to provide details to researchers on Ken Lay, etc. Since I was there.

[truedelphi]

12. The skinny on the Bush Crime family trekking down to Paraquay is

That they are interested in privatiZing the water there. (Plus it is the one country in SO AMeric athat currently does not have any extradition treatites with the USA.)

[LiberalFighter]

2. They need to keep the heat on JEB

[better tomorrow]

11. yep, remember Barbara calls him....

number 43...and then comes the nephew who they dubbed number 45.....they have plans for the "boy".

[madfloridian]

13. Wonkette picture of 45

Jeb, jr.

[WinkyDink]

15. Dubya is 43, no?

[lonestarnot]

3. Strange. Snakes usually love heat.

[Initech]

5. There isn't a single member of the Bush clan who isn't evil.

Jeb, Neil, George, George Sr., Prescott, Samuel... the list goes on.

[Me.]

6. Good

Questions like this will eliminate his veep chances

[spag68]

7. Hopefully he will

be relegated to driving a tractor on the farm in Paraguay, or george can show him how to clear brush. funny things happen with farm equipment, we can hope.

[maui9002]

8. Article also refers to John Snow, who used to run CSX

before he became Bush's Treasury Secretary. While at CSX, Snow was reportedly responsible for slashing costs, including the costs to maintain their tracks, some of which are used by Amtrak for passenger traffic. As a result of CSX's failure to maintain a switch in Lugoff, SC, an Amtrak passenger train derailed in 1991 (when Snow was at the helm) resulting in eight passengers being killed. After @ 10 years of legal wrangling, one of the victim's widows won an award of $50 million (including punitive damages) from CSX. But here's the rub. Based on an indemnification agreement between Amtrak and CSX, which CSX insisted in connection with allowing Amtrak to use its tracks, Amtrak was ultimately liable for the $50 million award. Who is Amtrak? That's right. A government owned railway provider funded by U.S taxpayers. So while John Snow was making millions and being lauded for cutting costs at CSX, which ultimately led to a number of deaths due to CSX's failure to properly maintain its tracks, U.S taxpayers were footing the bill for legal claims based on deaths and injuries to Amtrak passengers traveling on trains that derailed as a result of CSX's negligence. I learned about this travesty in a frightening book entitled "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)" by David Cay Johnston, a book I recommend highly. For more information on the issue, read the letter to the Transportation Secretary from Public Citizen at <http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/archive/rail_archive/articles.cfm?ID=817>

[Elspeth]

9. God, more cronies to hand off public monies to

:grr:

[better tomorrow]

10. was he as angry as when....

he put us all under martial law two days ahead of 911 by mistake? I hear he got in trouble at Thanksgiving dinner for that one.....

is this CSX deal for his bullet train?

[WinkyDink]

14. The Bush Family likes to "resent" a lot of things, do they not? Here's my fave Jeb pic:

Unhappy piggy:

[madfloridian]

16. Yes, they resent being called out on their crimes.

We still don't know all the damage Jeb has done to Florida. The CSX issue is only one part.

[blogslut]

17. CSX - Owned by Dubai Ports International

I'm just sayin'.

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2005/02/21/daily19.html

[madfloridian]

18. And the Bushes turned a whole area of Florida over to them.

Scary thought. Thanks for the info.

[madfloridian]

19. Daniel Ruth in the Tampa Trib, rips Jeb apart in his special way.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/mar/01/me-jeb-visionary-lakeland-folks-might-disagree/

Who would have ever guessed Southeastern University in Lakeland offers a major in grifting? How else to explain the school's con job to get people to burp up $300 to spend "An Evening With Jeb Bush," which has to be a bit like finding one's self passing the night with a bucket of warm spit - and paying for the privilege.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think the former governor's upcoming appearance on campus Friday night was being sponsored by the Robert Vesco Chair within the Hustler Department of Advanced Stings.
Bush's $300 scam is part of the school's 2008 National Leadership Forum, where a bunch of big shots weigh in on "an innovative and creative approach to teaching the servant leadership concept not only in the academic community, but in the business and church communities as well."

Leadership!

No doubt the Il Duce of the Apalachee Parkway's appearance at Southeastern will be of keen interest to the local peasants, especially since it was Bush who, behind closed doors, sold the city down the river for 491 million pieces of silver."

The rest is worse.

[madfloridian]

20. A Republican in FL calls CSX deal possible corporate welfare

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3004375&mesg_id=3004375

Ah, just to hear a Republican say those words.

[Disturbed]

21. Repugs hate Welfare but love Wealthfare.

Giving Taxpayer money to Corps is the standard for the RWing.

[SharonAnn]

24. Possible? Possible corporate welfare?

[YDogg]

22. Frankly. I'm surprised Southeastern University allowed reporters ...

... at their event. Except to boost their own reputation, but they had to imagine that reporters would at least attempt to ask jeb something about CSX.

[madfloridian]

26. Colin Powell was there with Jeb as well.

They had Sean Hannity last year. They are getting quite famous for their right wingers. Let's see, they were called Southeastern Bible College not long ago.

I had some of their students for interns. Very nice, very religious, but the last two were just too indoctrinated for public schools.

[YDogg]

31. Yet there are some public schools in Lakeland who practically only hire ...

... Southeastern Univ graduates. Many of those I have met are insidiously close-minded.

[MasonJar]

23. I wonder how much good ole Jebbie got under the table. George,

Sr. has raised a bunch of no-good punks.

[elleng]

25. Have to look into this for

jurisdictional matters. Back later.

[sarcasmo]

27. Another crooked Bush, imagine.

[seafan]

28. Our Fauntleroy Still Thinks He's Special (Jeb "Devious Plans" Bush)

Our Fauntleroy Still Thinks He's Special


(former)


By Daniel Ruth, The Tampa Tribune
March 11, 2008

It was a royally annoyed Jeb Bush who showed up in Lakeland the other day, which was sort of odd.
After all, the former governor was about make a very nice chunk of change off a bunch of unsuspecting marks, who had coughed up $300-a-pop to listen to a bunch of twaddle about how wonderful the Bush Junta years were for the state.

Instead, the ex-governor was in a sour mood, as if he had given himself a wedgie, after a bunch of nosy reporters started asking the Diocletian of the Apalachee Parkway why he treated his eight years in office as if his reign was one giant Skull & Bones meeting.
The Infamous Scribblers, as George Washington once referred to journalists, peppered Bush with questions about his hatched-in-secret plan to buy up 61 miles of CSX Transportation track in the Orlando area for $491 million, which would then enable the company to enhance its freight line traffic through a new Polk County hub.

At first, according to The Ledger newspaper in Lakeland, the Little Lord Fauntleroy of Tallahassee refused to take questions from reporters, as if they had any right to inquire into Bush's $491 million air kiss to CSX.

.....

The gall of some of those ink-stained peons.

Simply because the governor sold Lakeland down the river in backroom negotiation leading to a $491 million door prize to CSX, what business was it for anyone in Lakeland to ask him about it, merely because he happened to be in Lakeland to stuff a speaking fee into his smoking jacket?
But as the questions persisted, The Brother Who Should Have Been President Instead Of The Bush Family's Answer To Tommy Smothers grew agitated, insisting his Love Potion No. 491 Million to CSX was not cooked up in secret at all.

After all - he knew about it. How much more transparent could things possibly be?

Sure, there were no public hearings on the CSX canoodling. As well, many affected state legislators were kept in the dark about the deal.

.....

Why needlessly bother anyone, especially because Jeb Bush knew what was best for all, because Jeb Bush is - special.
Now Bush's footsie-wootsie with CSX is coming under increased scrutiny from the press, as well as the Legislature, which has questioned the enormity of $491 million in corporate welfare to a company with the wherewithal to pick up its own tab. ..... Bush spent eight years posing for holy pictures as governor, treating the state's open government laws like they were broccoli on his father's dinner plate.

When he was asked what he thought would be the fate of the CSX lap dance during this legislative session, the Eddie Haskell of political dynasties sniffed: "I don't care."

Some things never change.

Floridians will be paying for these eight miserable, vindictive years of Jeb Bush for many years to come.



In fact, so will our country be paying dearly for the last half century of this one family's destructiveness.

Gov. Jeb Bush joked during a Florida Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the people of San Francisco may be endangered and, "That's probably good news for the country."
The subject was environmental land and Bush was looking at a map of showing locations with a lot of different wildlife at the time.
"It looks like the people of San Francisco are an endangered species, which may not be a bad thing. That's probably good news for the country."

In the 1992 campaign against Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush mocked Gore as “ozone man” and claimed, “This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we’ll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American.”

The Bush divorce, completed in April after 23 years of marriage, was prompted in part by Bush's relationship with another woman. He admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.
The women, (Neil Bush) said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.

"Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.

"It was very unusual," Bush said.

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths," Barbara Bush said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on March 18, 2003. "Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." George W. Bush, January 28, 2003, State of the Union Address

The Family.

[madfloridian]

29. No one knows the full extent of his damage to our state. CSX was 2006

and the full import is just coming out.

[seafan]

30. He slithered into Florida in 1980 and we're still uncovering dead skins everywhere. n/t