Jeb Bush officially throws his hat into the presidential ring for 2016.

I am excited to announce I will actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States: https://t.co/luY4lCF2cA.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 16, 2014

Not that this is a surprise, but now there is not longer any remaining doubt.

I actually think that this will do for the Republican field, essentially what having Hillary contemplating a run has done to the Democratic field.

I'm not saying that Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Rand Paul, and Chris Christie will not necessarily run, I am just saying that they will have little chance of beating Jeb. And he will for all intents and purposes draw the majority of media attention.

And let me just add at this point that the Democrats have no choice but to rally behind Hillary at this point. Because like it or not she has the very best chance of beating Bush in the general.

The moment that Rick Perry realizes what he said.

(Source.)

NBC reporter asks Rick Perry if he is "smart enough to be President of the United States." Best question ever!

Courtesy of Real Clear Politics:  

GOV. RICK PERRY: I think over the course of the last two years, people, you know, they realize that what they saw in 2011 is certainly not the person they're looking at in 2013, 2014, 2015. 

KASIE HUNT, MSNBC: And are you smart enough to be president of the United States?" 

PERRY: I think the standpoint of life's experiences. Running for the presidency is not an IQ test. It is a test of an individual's resolve. It's a test of an individual's philosophy. It is a test of an individual's life's experiences. And I think Americans are really ready for a leader that will give them a great hope about the future.

Yeah but she asked a question, and he never answered it.

You know a smarter person might have been able to do that. 

And no, running for the presidency is NOT an IQ test. But as Sarah Palin learned to her great consternation IQ does in fact play a significant role in preparing a candidate to answer reporters' questions.

And she also demonstrated that wearing glasses is not enough to project an air of intelligence.

Rick Perry legal team tries to have case thrown out because special prosecutor "did not properly take his oath." Seriously, that's all they've got?

Courtesy of the Statesman: 

A state district judge refused to throw out the criminal charges against Gov. Rick Perry, ruling Tuesday that special prosecutor Michael McCrum had been properly appointed to the case. 

Perry’s legal team argued that the charges must be voided because special prosecutor Michael McCrum did not properly take his oath of office when he began working on the governor’s case, negating every act performed over the past 15 months — including the indictment accusing Perry of abusing the powers of his office. 

Senior District Judge Bert Richardson disagreed. 

“This court concludes that Mr. McCrum’s authority was not voided by the procedural irregularities in how and when the oath of office … was administered,” Richardson’s order said. 

What’s more, Richardson ruled, Perry’s lawyers waited too long to raise their objections to the way McCrum was sworn in more than a year ago.

There are those, on both sides of the aisle, who have suggested that this case against Perry is weak and  has no teeth. However if Perry's legal team is already scraping the bottom of the barrel in an attempt to discredit the prosecutor bringing the case to trial, that seems to indicate a lack of confidence in their ability to beat this thing on the evidence.

And as Jeffrey Toobin pointed out earlier this year, the evidence is pretty damning:  

What Perry did was obvious. The Governor was using his leverage to jam a political adversary—not exactly novel behavior in Texas, or most other states. But Democrats succeeded in winning the appointment of a special prosecutor, Michael McCrum, to investigate Perry’s behavior, and on Friday McCrum brought the hammer down. The threat to veto the money for the D.A. amounted to, according to the prosecutor, two different kinds of felonies: a “misuse” of government property, and a corrupt attempt to influence a public official in “a specific exercise of his official power or a specific performance of his official duty” or “to violate the public servants known legal duty.” (In the charmingly archaic view of Texas statutes, every public official is a “him.”)

No if this case ends the way many think it might end, I don't think the sentencing pictures will be quite as flattering to "Governor Good Hair" as his mugshot was.