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[anobserver2]

This message was self-deleted by its author (anobserver2) on Sun Aug 26, 2018, 11:48 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[randome]

5. Present your reasons, then.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[randome]

19. Depending on his month of birth, he still could have been closer to 18 instead of 19.

I'm not that conversant with higher education requirements. Couldn't he have completed his B.A. in a shorter time frame? Regardless, I'm not sure conservatives (or Progressives) would lean on him to produce college transcripts or anything.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[winter is coming]

29. I'd check the date on the actual marriage license before going much further with this.

You may be right, but it's also possible that someone got the year wrong somewhere and the error has propagated.

[csziggy]

119. FamilySearch.org says marriage date was 23 Feb 1974

John E Bush
mentioned in the record of John E Bush and Maria C Garnica
Name: John E Bush
Event Type: Marriage
Event Date: 23 Feb 1974
Event Place: Travis, Texas, United States
Age: 20
Birth Year (Estimated): 1954
Spouse's Name: Maria C Garnica
Spouse's Age: 20
Spouse's Birth Year (Estimated): 1954
Certificate Number: 016514
Affiliate County Code: 227
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VTK4-6K3

John Ellis Bush
Texas, Birth Index
Name: John Ellis Bush
Event Type: Birth
Event Date: 11 Feb 1953
Event Place: Midland, Texas
Gender: Male
Father's Name: George Herbert Walke Bush
Mother's Name: Barbara Pierce
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V8DD-B7W

Interesting that the age for both the bride and groom is listed as 20 even though it is clear that Jeb was 21, his birthday not quite two weeks before his marriage.

[unblock]

45. really? it's impossible to repeat a grade and still graduate at age 18?

start 1st grade at age 5 / finish 1st grade at age 6, and you're on track to graduate from high school at age 17.
repeat a grade somewhere in there and you're graduating at age 18.

as for graduating in college in 2.5 years, this is not nearly as hard as it sounds. for starters, you can take courses in the summer.
then, much of the requirement is simply earning enough credit hours. if your goal is to get to the magic number of the minimum required credit hours for graduation in as little time as possible, it's often not difficult to pick up some easy courses that offer an extra credit hour but in practice aren't any more difficult.

many times, credit hours are simply based on the number of classes per week, which of course you don't have to actually show up for! take a 4-credit course in something remedial that you already know, or a foreign language that you already speak, and just show up to pass the mid-term and final. and if you're a bush, you have no problem paying someone to write any essay for you.

most people go to college at least in part to learn, and so take course that are reasonably challenging and then put in the time. the bush family lives on a different planet. i'm sure he knew early on he just needed to plausibly earn the piece of paper.

[unblock]

88. "it" depends on the month when you were born?

i assume by "it" you mean the age at which you enter first grade, or kindergarten?

that varies from state to state and from school district to school district.

in mini-unblock's school district, kids enter kindergarten between the ages of 3 and 7. so there's a large range of ages of graduating ages. no idea about bush's school district when he started, but you're simply make a lot of assumptions that may well hold up, but at this point appear to be just guesswork.

[4139]

50. Class of 71, Lincoln Chaffee, Bill Belichick....

Too many people to fake... He graduated from Andover in 71

[pnwmom]

83. Here's where I think you're getting tripped up. Yes, he did have to repeat 9th grade.

But even so, the Boston Globe article says he was 14 when he started at the new prep school -- so still on track to graduate by 18.

So maybe he was young when he began school, because -- even though he repeated the year -- he was the ordinary age for going through high school.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

151. I vividly remember a quote from Jeb's friend in 2008 - when asked why Jeb

wasn't running.....they said "too many skeletons" Can't quote a source - but read it here - long ago.

[CK_John]

6. Who was the head of the CIA before he was POTUS ??? One of the CIA specialities is

phony documents.

It's a waste of time.

[yeoman6987]

53. For six years the Repugs have been saying the same thing about our great president

It's sick. I don't think we should get into this. Repugs went so far to go to classmate in law school who never heard of him. Well big deal. They want his transcript but the President said go to heck which I approve of. Repugs are gross.

[yeoman6987]

76. Has it really hurt us not seeing President Obama's

Transcripts? I would say no, but you seem rather concerned. I don't understand that at all.

[Raine1967]

123. Personally I don't want people lying about their education.

I do understand your point, but I look at the likes of Scott walker who did claim he graduated only to find out he did lie.

With President Obama, they (the RWNJ) created the lie and asked to prove them wrong. People like Walker lied. President Obama was the editor of the Harvard Law review, there was not on damn reason why he should have shown his transcripts, he did not lie about his education.


Having said all that, I am not sure I want to go down this path myself — However: if John Ellis Bush claims he graduated when he indeed did not, that is really messed up and that is a lot different than asking for transcripts.

[valerief]

2. It doesn't matter if a Bush lies. nt

[Greybnk48]

112. And IF the press digs around in Walker's background

they'll find that he did not drop out at almost the end of his senior year. He dropped out with almost two years to go AND he was most likely expelled from Marquette for "conduct unbecoming," most likely cheating. This story has been scrubbed so clean it squeaks, but that's what money will do.

http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2013/11/time-magazine-let-scott-walker-clean-up.html

[pscot]

4. Would you like fries with that?

[NightWatcher]

7. Did Jeb think he was Hispanic back then too?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

8. What makes you suspect this?

Frankly, when you have power and money behind you, gaining a bachelor degree should be a cinch-- show up, goof off, and collect your diploma. Was JEB! needed elsewhere so badly he couldn't just hang out at UT and fake it for 4 years?

[WillowTree]

130. ".......show up, goof off, and collect your diploma."

And graduate magna and Phi Beta Kappa? Seems pretty far fetched to me.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

139. I guess I have a lot more faith in what power and money can buy.

For the Bush Family, I'd think those things would be no more than, to paraphrase Radar O'Reilly, "a three-call finagle."

[LuvNewcastle]

9. Does he have a Master's or a J.D.?

After what the Bush family did to smooth over Dubya's service record, nothing would surprise me, but Jeb has signed his name to all sorts of things, PNAC perhaps the most notable. If it could be proven that he never finished anything past high school and he's lied all these years, it would probably sink him. Finding proof is going to be hard, though. The Bushes know how to cover their asses since they've been doing it for so long.

[Ilsa]

51. I don't think he has either.

I think he only has a BA, and I think the OP presents some interesting questions. How did he earn 120 hours of credit in a short period of time?

[LuvNewcastle]

56. I don't see how he could.

Child prodigies and other geniuses probably have done it, but it would be way to much for just about anyone else. Maybe he has been lying about it all these years. I can't wait to hear the story from the Bush people.

[delrem]

10. I need more evidence than some anonymous, unsubstantiated anecdote on a web forum.

An anonymous person can say anything they want coupled with a vacuous "I have good reason" - if they don't provide the actual reason.

Sure, a general animosity for the fuckhead Jeb, brother of W and son of H. Bush, might get such an anonymous post a following. There's a lot of that shit going down on the internet and I don't like how it muddies the waters and undermines the power of the social medium.

[femmocrat]

12. From wikipedia:

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Latin American Studies.[11] He completed his coursework in two and a half years.{20}

The source {20} is Kitty Kelley, however. Don't know where she got her information from.

[LuvNewcastle]

25. I've never known anyone who completed

a B.A. in 2 and a half years, much less graduated with honors. I think this subject deserves investigating, but I don't hold out much hope of finding anything. Even if it could be proven that he didn't finish, it would be next to impossible to get the MSM to report it.

[former9thward]

100. Oh please.

A friend of mine got a BA in two years. He had just gotten out of the army and wanted to make up for lost time. And this was at a major university. It is not that hard to do. It is just most students are pretty lazy and want to take the least number of courses a term that they can so they don't have to do any hard work and can party.

If he did not graduate from the UT they would have reported it by now. It is totally naive to think they would not.

[csziggy]

121. My sister did with early enrollment

She was a bit of a prodigy - started first grade at 5 years of age. Despite being a year behind her classmates, she started community college in lieu of attending her senior year in college. Because she got so many college credits with her CLEP scores, she received her AA degree the same week she got her high school diploma. She then took a heavy course load and finished her BA degree with a summer term and one full year of classes.

She had just turned 18 when she got her BA.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. You need to contact Donald Trump so he demands Jeb's college transcripts./NT

[Xyzse]

147. LuLz... I wonder if he would do it.

Contact Trump Nao!

[Bjorn Against]

18. If what you are saying is true it would be a bombshell that would destroy his campaign

So far however you have not convinced me that it is true, I have yet to see you cite a source for your information. I won't take on allegations like this unless there is solid proof because I don't want to end up with egg on my face, there are plenty of things to go after Bush on that I can prove.

[Bjorn Against]

31. I can't find anything in your links that says he dropped out of college

Adding up the years does not prove that he dropped out of college, there are ways for people to get through college in less than four years. He may have been in a post secondary program that allowed him to get college credit while he was still in High School, I don't know.

Like I said if you were to prove this it would be a bombshell that would destroy his campaign, but don't celebrate yet because you still have a lot of work to do before you can prove what you are alleging.

[Bjorn Against]

46. Sorry, but you have not convinced me

If he did drop out I am sure some of his classmates would know, if you can find witnesses I will listen but I need more than simple addition of years to reach such a conclusion.

[Bjorn Against]

66. Prove it. Find the witnesses.

Until you provide proof I will stick to going after Bush on issues where he is proven to be wrong. There is no shortage of issues to go after Bush on, we don't need to make things up.

[Bjorn Against]

69. Name one person in education who has alleged Bush dropped out

[riderinthestorm]

72. How would his roommates know? I never knew specifics of their degree reqs

aside from general groaning about a specific class, my roommate would never have known specifically.

Unless Jeb roomed with another Latin Studies major and compared credit hours and course specifics, it's completely plausible no one would know specifics.

[Bjorn Against]

74. I don't know, I was not his roommate.

I never even mentioned roommates because I am unaware of whether or not he even had roommates. All I want is some sort of witness who can speak to the allegations of the OP, I am willing to listen if evidence can be provided. I don't like Bush one bit and would love to use this against him, but I will not use it against him until I can be shown proof and I have yet to see that proof.

[elehhhhna]

41. not a bombshell. a sign he bootstrapped his ass despite

His lack of education, and he gave up all that schooling so as to marry his super (shady) wife.

[WinkyDink]

86. Guess again.

[panader0]

22. I'll kick this.

[undeterred]

27. Lying about your personal history is a Bush crime family tradition.

Poppy couldn't remember being in the CIA in the 60's... the chimp lost the whole year of 1972. It would seem perplexing if John Ellis Bush told a story about his life that added up.

[Warpy]

28. Republican morons are suspicious of anyone with real education

They'll be delighted to find out he's a dropout just like all the other people they hold in high esteem.

[Warpy]

73. They're vastly outnumbered by the morons

who will all feel enormously relieved.

[applegrove]

33. I think he was born in Kenya.

[applegrove]

36. I want to see a birth certificate.

[riderinthestorm]

37. I'll kick this. Something is weird... nt

[riderinthestorm]

40. Will you do the research on this to expose malfeasance?

its going to take some digging.

My daughter finished her undergrad in three years, double major from Indiana University. Magna Cum Laude but she had high school AP classes that transferred plus she also attended summer school and regularly took 19 - 20 credits/semester.

In other words, she hauled ass to finish in three years. Doing it in even less time?

I'm very, very skeptical.

[struggle4progress]

42. I wouldn't touch it unless somebody had actually proved it.

He probably needed about 40 3-credit-hour courses to get through the major and graduate. If he took 6 courses each semester for 5 regular semesters and an additional total of 10 courses over four summer sessions during two summers, he would have gotten the 40 courses. It's doable

[Ilsa]

57. I took 21 hours one semester.

Busy beyond belief. Took 18 hours one semester that was all senior level and/or grad level for my undegrad degree. Also worked part time. Nearly went crazy. I can't imagine being in a serious relationship at the same time.

Then again, JEB wasn't getting a degree in the sciences.

[Ilsa]

65. He could have picked up a few credits ahead of starting

College, but I doubt it would have made much difference.

I think you might be on to something. I don't give a shit what that liar Kittie Kelley wrote. We need transcripts and witnesses.

[struggle4progress]

61. I would estimate 12 credit hours over a summer as a rather heavy load, if he took courses

with any substance, which would leave him about 96/3 = 32 credit hours every spring and fall; but ten to eleven courses a semester is undoable by any standard, and in addition he seems to have played on a varsity sports team in 1973

Where did you get your terms for attendance?

[riderinthestorm]

71. And how did he manage to get the courses he needed conveniently over the summer?

its near impossible to ensure the exact courses you need are available over the summer.

And he graduated in Latin American studies?!

Certainly not a mainstream major where Gen Ed courses would have been easier to find and take.

[struggle4progress]

75. I'd rather not speculate. If we can show clearly when he got to UT, and when he graduated,

then there might be a basis for asking certain questions. All I think I know right now is that he graduated from Phillips Andover in 1971, was a junior on the UT varsity tennis team in 1973 and graduated UT in 1974

[City Lights]

43. IIRC, Junior did not get in to UT Austin because it's merit based.

If John fucked up in HS as badly as I've read, how did he get in there?

Something stinks here. I'm not sure that the voters will care though. Republicans get a pass on most things that would sink other candidates.

[elehhhhna]

44. His bro went AWOL, ffs, and was mister war president!

Ya think a fake degree matters to their cretinous base?!!

[groundloop]

54. I suspect reporters will be afraid to dig too deeply into this

They'll get burned with a fake document which conveniently gets exposed and embarrasses the hell out of them (where have we seen that before?).

[elehhhhna]

55. just post one sentence everywhere

Is Jeb! lying about his college degree?

[anobserver2]

78. From South Africa, on politicians with fake degrees: "The arrogance of fake degrees"

Excerpt:

http://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/opinion/the-arrogance-of-fake-degrees-1.1783047#.VYTfYI6E7ms


The arrogance of fake degrees

November 19 2014 at 03:44pm

A parliamentary inquiry voted unanimously for SABC chairwoman Ellen Tshabalala to be axed for lying.

The proliferation of fake degrees exposes a serious problem of moral bankruptcy in South Africa, says Lauren Marx.

Mark van Doren once said: “Respect for the truth is an acquired taste.” This statement holds particularly true if one examines the degree (mind the pun) of those holding public office and in parastatals who claim to be in possession of high-calibre qualifications.

While this is often masqueraded as an “educational misrepresentation”, it is nothing more than fraud....

This exposes a serious problem and dangerous precedent of moral bankruptcy for South Africa and sadly there are several examples of this fraud.

...The appointment of individuals that lie, cheat and use their connections to get to the top are an embarrassment to South Africa.

They make a mockery of those who have justifiably studied diligently and obtained university degrees. As South African taxpayers we need to hold these people to account and always remember the old mantra that a half-truth should be considered a whole lie...

[anobserver2]

79. Pakistan: "Another Pakistani Politician found with fake education degree"

http://www.politicalforum.com/asia/343490-another-pakistani-politician-found-fake-education-degree.html

Another Pakistani Politician found with fake education degree

Ayla Malik, who belongs to the PTI (Pakistan Justice party) headed by Imran khan, her higher secondary educational degree was found to be fake by the election commission. The bombshell female politician is contesting her fake degree case in the court. Educational board has shown the documents to the court, which shows that there is no record of her education credential in the board's record....

Fake education degree scandal has devastated a lot of political parties, when it was found that a lot of their candidates have fake degrees. This shows the level of politician in the country.

Also:

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-28595-Pindi-board-declares-Ayla-Maliks-FA-certificate-fake

Pindi board declares Ayla Malik’s FA certificate fake

They also said the board did not have any record, which could prove that the degree of Ayla Malik was genuine. So, the board record is 100 percent correct and the degree of Ayla is fake, they claimed.

Ayla was the PTI candidate for NA-71 (Mianwali) in by-election but she had been disqualified from contesting the election for holding a fake degree in July last year....

PML-N’s Obaidullah Shadikhel had challenged Ayla’s certificate in the Lahore High Court’s election tribunal bench, which ordered the BISE Rawalpindi to confirm and verify her degree.

The board in its reply, submitted to the Civil Judge Rawalpindi, stated that no record of her intermediate certificate was found and the role number that Ayla’s certificate carried was actually of a male candidate named Imdad Hussain. ...

[anobserver2]

80. From India: "The low-down on which of Tomar’s degrees are fake"

http://www.opindia.com/2015/06/the-low-down-on-which-of-tomars-degrees-are-fake/

The low-down on which of Tomar’s degrees are fake

bwoyblunder / June 13, 2015 / Reports

Ex Law Minister of AAP in Delhi, Jitender Singh Tomar has been in the eye of a storm for some time now. It has been alleged that his educational degrees are fake and hence he is in fact not a lawyer, which he claims to be. ...

Tomar’s problems first began in April 2015 when the Avadh University and Ayodhya college, in reply to an RTI declared that Tomar had a fake BSc degree and they did not issue any such degree. This was corroborated by the police in their investigation last week. When they took Tomar to his college in Ayodhya, he could not identify his college building, the classrooms, examination department, canteen or the administrative office. Thus it was crystal clear that Tomar had faked his BSc degree. ...

[anobserver2]

81. Kenya, Germany, Romania - "Politicians, Fake Degrees and Plagiarism"

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/politicians-fake-degrees-and-plagiarism

https://www.insidehighered.com/aaup-compensation-survey/2014-2015
Blog U ›
The World View

The World View

A blog from the Center for International Higher Education

Politicians, Fake Degrees and Plagiarism
June 16, 2013 - 8:14pm
By
Philip G. Altbach

Last February Kenya’s Commission on Higher Education refused to recognize degree certificates from unrecognized higher education institutions. The article in University World News, noted that numerous politicians were claiming such “degrees,” including several ministers. At the same time, the University of Düsseldorf in Germany withdrew the doctoral degree of the Minister of Education after an investigation for plagiarism. In 2013 the same university revoked the PhD awarded to Science and Education Minister, Annette Schavan, also for plagiarism. In 2011, the German minister of defense, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, was forced to resign after plagiarism was found in his doctoral dissertation. The prestige of holding an advanced degree in Germany is particularly high, and thus the temptation to cut corners perhaps quite high as a result. ...

In "A Plague of Plagiarism at the Heart of Politics," Times Higher Education, focuses on a series of plagiarism cases among top officials in several countries, including Romania, where academic degrees seem to be available for sale....

Are politicians more prone to this kind of hanky-panky than others in society? Is degree fakery and plagiarism a global epidemic? Are there effective means of checking on the veracity of academic work? One Pakistani provincial chief minister said, when accused of having a fake degree,

“A degree is a degree. It does not matter if it is real or fake.”...

[Jane Austin]

82. I can't speak to your dates, but as a UT graduate

I can speak to the many, many academic requirements for graduation back in those days.

You had to take two years (four semesters) of foreign language, two or three years of English, both composition and literature, a couple of years of science (I took both geology and chemistry) a year of math, both Texas government and Texas history were required, physical education for four semesters, some electives and then hours and hours of courses in your major. I'm pretty sure American history was also required.

That's just off the top of my head, and there's no way you could do all that in two-and-a-half years.

UT wasn't a silly school, either. The courses were comprehensive and thorough, and nobody skated through.

I have no knowledge of Jeb Bush's college career, but if a family can cover up an AWOL military career for one brother, they might just be able to make adjustments to the college career of another.

[Paladin]

89. This UT grad confirms your description of that era's requirements.

It was a fun place to get a degree back then, but it damn sure wasn't easy.

[WinkyDink]

85. OMG. If it didn't matter that Dubya went AWOL, THIS sure as hell won't matter. Give it up.

[Jim Lane]

92. I think this has some potential but not much

The first question is how long he spent at UT. It's good to know that he had to repeat ninth grade, but that doesn't change the two-and-a-half-years figure unless you make some other assumptions, notably how old he was when he started school

The bottom line is not his repeating ninth grade but his date of graduation from Andover. The Boston Globe article, "Jeb Bush shaped by troubled Phillips Academy years", states that he graduated from Andover in June 1971. There's even a picture of him (allegedly at his graduation though I admit he's not wearing cap and gown) with his grandfather Prescott Bush.

I agree with 4139 in #50 who says it would be too hard to fake. There are too many other witnesses and documents out there. Even for the BFEE, I think it would be impossible for them to palm off a 1972 grad as having graduated in 1971. Surely there would be documents from the 1971-72 school year at Andover that would expose the lie. Bush was on the tennis team in 1970-71. Did he completely go underground for his final year, so that he wouldn't be in any tennis match reports or any other writings or photographs? And the 18-year-old Bush engaged in this huge deception because he knew he'd be dropping out of college in 1974 and he wanted to make his later false claim of a degree look less implausible?

Sorry, that's just not reasonable. I think it overwhelmingly likely that he really did graduate from Andover in 1971. That gives him two and a half years at UT before his February 1974 marriage.

Of course, as you point out, that's still well below the time normally required for a B.A. I think it's at least possible that he didn't actually get the B.A. but just said he did, and he was never in a position (such as going to grad school) where someone would demand a transcript. Per his Wikipedia bio, his first job after college was "in an entry-level position in the international division of Texas Commerce Bank, which was founded by the family of James Baker." After several years at the bank, he worked on his father's Presidential campaign. Neither the Baker family nor his father would have given him any grief about falsely claiming a B.A. After the election, he moved to Florida and (as the son of the Vice President of the United States) "took a job in real estate with Armando Codina, a 32-year-old Cuban immigrant and self-made American millionaire." Nothing in that history suggests any close scrutiny of his claimed education.

The other possibility is that he did get a degree in two and a half years. I don't dismiss that as readily as some do. First, he might have had some AP credits. Although he began his Andover career as a borderline student, he did improve. From the Globe article:

Bush today considers Andover the defining educational experience of his life. The student who once nearly flunked out said he made the honor roll in the final trimester of his senior year.

He was awarded one of the school’s top honors, co-winning a history prize given for the best essay on “human liberty.” Bush received the prize at his graduation ceremony, at which the diplomas were awarded by his father, George H. W. Bush, Class of 1942.

Another student is quoted as agreeing that Bush underwent a transformation.

More than any AP credits, though, I think a more likely explanation is hard work on his part, careful course selection (every school has its tough courses and its gut courses), and, in all probability, some pull from his father. For an analogy, see the recent revelations about no-show courses for athletes at the University of North Carolina. (As a UNC grad, I'm pained to admit this, but facts are facts.) At UNC, athletes were steered to courses that required only a paper. The papers they submitted were graded as A, regardless of content, thus enabling them to continue accumulating credits and to maintain a high enough grade-point average for athletic eligibility. I wouldn't be surprised if Poppy Bush or friends of his quietly got the word to Professor X that Jeb wanted a degree but wasn't keen on taking four years to do it, with the result that Jeb got three credits for a few hours' work writing a mediocre paper.

You correctly raise the question of the political impact. If the truth is the latter possibility -- he got a degree but with some finagling and improper influence -- it would by now be virtually impossibe to prove, and few people would care even if it were true. So his dad pulled some strings to help him, big deal, he was just a kid, what do you expect from powerful people. Not many undecided voters seemed to care about the much stronger evidence for the string-pulling that got Shrub a coveted spot in the Air National Guard to stay out of Vietnam. On the other hand, if Jeb actually didn't get a degree, then that's not just some youthful indiscretion, because as an adult he's been making a false claim. To prove it, someone would have to get the UT records. That would probably be difficult but not impossible. My answer to your question is that, if someone could prove that, it would be damaging but not fatal to his candidacy.

[Jim Lane]

102. My response

I don't follow how the court system came into this discussion.

As a lawyer, I know more about courts than about higher education. I feel confident in saying that the effects of money and power are somewhere between the conceptual extremes. We do not have equal justice under law, in which the rich and powerful are treated just like everyone else. The system should work that way, but it doesn't. In real life, the rich and powerful do have advantages. On the other hand, it's not the case that they "can control the court system like it's nothing but another can of paint they can use however they wish." I frequently represent ordinary individuals who have no particular money or status (sometimes even undocumented aliens) but who prevail against the government or a big corporation. (For example, last month, in a case I worked on, Delta Air Lines agreed to a substantial settlement for an injured worker.)

To apply this to Jeb Bush's academic history: I strongly doubt that there'd be a legal basis for forcing the disclosure of anyone's undergraduate records, whether the student was a Bush or a complete nobody. Even if Texas has a state open-records law, which would allow an investigator to get some UT records (procurement contracts, for example), it probably occurred to someone to include an exception for individual student transcripts. So, no, I'm not saying that the Bush family's wealth and power would shield him from what would otherwise be a successful inquiry.

My bottom line is still that it's not outlandish to think that he got a degree in two and a half years, but it's also not outlandish to think that he dropped out without receiving a degree and has gotten away with the deception all these years.

I express no opinion about Hitler's ability as a painter. I would never consider that to be a reason to vote for anyone for public office.

[Jim Lane]

108. Practical advice: Think less about federal prosecutors and more about investigative journalists.

I very strongly doubt that there's any crime here.

There is a school of "thought" that says "There's a federal statute called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, therefore any sort of dishonest (hence 'corrupt') conduct can be prosecuted as a federal crime." That's simply not accurate. A politician lying about his credentials is not a federal crime.

Furthermore, even if it actually were a crime, a federal prosecutor appointed by a Democratic President would be extremely reluctant to go after a newly announced Republican Presidential hopeful, because it would look so much like a partisan hit job.

The real hope for pursuing the line of inquiry you suggest is that a reporter might start sniffing around and might find a smoking gun -- or, more likely, might find a couple of spent bullet casings, i.e., something that's not definitive but that raises enough of a question that other reporters start pressing Bush to authorize the release of his transcript.

If there were a criminal investigation, be it state or federal, neither a private university nor a state university could withhold a student's academic records in response to a subpoena. If the student had been seen at the school's health facilities, that portion of the student's records would be protected by the doctor-patient privilege. There is, however, no teacher-student privilege or administrator-student privilege that would justify a school in resisting a subpoena that called for production of a transcript.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

97. If he folds his phoney diploma into a diaper and wears it with a prostitute

he'll get a standing ovation from every corner of the GOP. If this issue leads to problems, he should seriously consider doing this on stage at his next campaign event.

[ecstatic]

106. Can someone pass this info to Trump?

They're all clowns, but it would be especially hilarious for Trump to start demanding to see Jeb's transcripts.

[4139]

126. 'Pass to Trump'... Great idea!!

[csziggy]

120. University of Texas yearbook information

1973:
Indexes Jeb only on the tennis team page - page 428 if anyone has access. I accessed it through Ancestry.com but cannot link directly to the page even for members.

On that page he is not listed by name, though he may be in a photo of the team which does not have members identified.

It says: "But there was no denying that the Texas team, with three freshmen, two juniors and a senior playing in their top six spots, was especially impressive." Then they go on to identify by name the senior, both juniors and one junior.

At best, according to this, Jeb could have been a junior at the time the 1973 yearbook was sent to press.

1975:
Listed among the "Fall Initiates" of Phi Beta Kappa

[onecaliberal]

129. Are you kidding, the republicons celebrate stupidity.

[harrose]

131. Of Course He Lied About His Education...

... he's a Rethug. Rethugs lie about everything.

Really, is there anyone who doesn't believe that a Repuke would murder, steal, start a war or even destroy humanity for a chance to be elected to any position of power? So why is it such a stretch to wonder if one faked some academic credentials?

[Orsino]

140. Cart precedes horse.

"What happens next" would depend on what can be proven and what reasonable doubts can be shown to exist, and of course on how it's spun by the media.

Your case needs evidence before we leap to the sentencing phase.

[Freddie Stubbs]

142. Why haven't you gone to the press with this bombshell revelation?

[0rganism]

148. i think this would be brushed aside like his brother's "service" record

i remember how excited many of us got when that memo began circulating which showed W having... shall we say... lackluster attendance at his ANG unit. then it turned out to be a forgery - even though the information may have been correct, the document itself was falsified, and the issue died along with the credibility of some who reported on it. from that point on, any suggestion that W's military service record was less than stellar was met with guffaws by the press and mainstream voters.

i suspect, if there were any truth to this, and it was viewed as something potentially harmful to Jeb's campaign, the campaign itself would begin preparing a similar documentation trap.

if Jeb is the GOP nominee, it will take a lot more than references to past indiscretions and possible fraud to defeat him.

[HFRN]

154. his being a 'Bush' does it for me

graduate, or not

[HFRN]

155. If your CIA chief dad can't cover up your dropping out of college, what's the

point of having a dad who's head of the CIA?

[Enrique]

156. I'm sick of this rumor already

I hope jeb loses early so we dont have to keep hearing it