MIAMI, Florida — At a brief press availability tonight at the Hispanic Leadership Network conference here, former GOP Florida governor Jeb Bush suggested that he doesn’t think either Republican presidential frontrunner can win a majority of Hispanic voters in this year’s general election. Bush, who has worked hard to push the GOP to reach out to Hispanics, including writing an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday titled, “Four ways Republicans can win Hispanics back,” alternated between English and Spanish this evening while fielding questions about the Republican field.

But asked how Republican frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich can win Hispanic voters, given their anti-immigration stances, Bush replied, “I don’t know if they can a win a majority.” Watch it:

Bush also gave Romney a pass on saying that he would veto the DREAM Act, noting that the former Massachusetts governor has moderated his position.

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Tea Party Patriots Policy Summit in Phoenix, AZ.

In December, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) lashed out at Arizona’s SB1070 law, a law that allows police to racially profile people they believe to be in the country without documentation. During a speech criticizing the law, the Denver Post reported that “Bush said if his children walked the streets of Phoenix they might look awfully suspicious to police.” Bush’s wife was born in Mexico and his children are Hispanic. At the Tea Party summit, we asked Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the sheriff responsible for the Phoenix area (Maricopa County) about Bush’s remarks. A staunch supporter of SB1070, Arpaio was dumbfounded. Arpaio said he was a “campaign guy” for George W. Bush, so Jeb should have spoke to him first before commenting on the law. He then said he’s “gotta educate” Jeb on SB1070:

FANG: What do you think about Jeb Bush? He said he’d be afraid for his sons to be coming to Maricopa County, that they would be racially profiled.

ARPAIO: What? Who said that?

FANG: Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida.

KEYES: His wife is Mexican.

ARPIAO: So what? My daughter in law is Hispanic, what’s that got to do with it? You mean, because I was a campaign guy for George W. here, a good friend of mine, and you’re saying Jeb said he’s afraid to come to Maricopa County? [...] Jeb doesn’t understand the law. Why doesn’t he call, why doesn’t he talk to me? [...] Why would he talk to me?

FANG: Well you’re America’s sheriff.

ARPIAO: The world’s sheriff. [...] So he really said that? We gotta educate him. We gotta educate that. I don’t know, you probably misquote him.

Watch it:

Also during the interview, Arpiao fully endorsed State Sen. Russell Pearce’s (R-AZ) effort to pass a new law the Wonk Room’s Andrea Nill has referred to as “SB1070 on steroids.”

This past week, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) told the GOP it would be “incredibly stupid” to ignore Latinos as a political force. “This is about the conservative cause. If you look over the horizon over the next 10 or 20 years…without an active involvement of Hispanics, we will not be the governing philosophy,” he said.

During an interview with Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera which aired this weekend, Bush — who opposed the original Arizona law SB-1070 and is in favor of comprehensive immigration reform — said he is alienating conservatives in his efforts to reach out to Latinos:

You could hear crickets around me in my views on immigration on this particular issue. It’s a solitary view, I guess — or close to it.

Watch it:

It’s not quite accurate that Jeb is hearing crickets; he’s also hearing loud criticism from the intolerant wing of his party. Right-wing hate radio host Mark Levin blasted Bush for “race-baiting,” calling his remarks “divisive” and “destructive of conservatism.” Levin said, “I’m starting to think Jeb Bush isn’t that bright, to be honest with you.” Calling Bush someone who sounds like “a host on MSNBC,” Levin concluded:

I am sick and tired of politicians and ethnic front groups who do everything they can to divide us, to categorize us, and to undermine the entire notion of our founding. I cannot vote for Jeb Bush whenever he runs, because apparently, he has a comprehension problem when it comes to our founding, when it comes to the Declaration and the Constitution, and when it comes to basic — basic — understanding of the greatness of this nation.

Watch the video at The Right Scoop.

Levin is a frequent critic of conservatives, previously attacking Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Bill O’Reilly, and even Glenn Beck. Nevertheless, he remains an inspiration for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Sarah Palin, and many other influential right-wing leaders.

(HT: The Right Scoop)

Making full use of their arsenal for gridlock, many GOP members are itching for the opportunity to force a government shutdown next year. Forming a veritable “shutdown caucus,” a new cohort of Republicans like Rep.-elect Alan Nunnelee (MS), Rep.-elect Tim Walberg (MI), and Sen.-elect Mike Lee (UT) joined veteran Reps. Lynn Westmoreland (GA), Steve King (R-IA) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) to push the radical tactic, popular among their conservative base. Indeed, Tea Party leaders and their conservative cohort are keen to pull the shutdown trigger, firing warning shots at Republicans who “may be growing squeamish” at the thought.

But “one of the most popular Republicans in the nation” is brushing off such clamoring as political noise. Asked by Newsmax’s Kathleen Walter whether he viewed the “grassroots conservatives” push for shutdown as a “mistake,” Bush dismissed the notion as “a little naive,” because, quite simply, “you can’t shut down the government”:

WALTER: Governor Bush, some grassroots conservatives say that Republicans should reserve the right to shutdown the federal government rather than vote to raise the debt ceiling in the next Congress. Do you view that as a mistake?

BUSH: I view it as a little naïve. First of all, you can’t shut down the government. There are public safety, national security issues, that override a well-intended point, I’m sure, that government is way too big. Better to have a plan on how you reduce the debt by reducing the deficit. And that plan is out there…You can create a roadmap where you have declining deficits that would create a whole lot of confidence, a lot more confidence than shutting down government for a couple of weeks and then admitting that its not going to be finished. It’s harder to build consensus around the tough choices that have to be made, but that’s what has to be done.

Watch it (starting at 9:00):

Dubbing a government shutdown over the debt ceiling “naive” is a bit of an understatement. The GOP’s first attempt to shut down the government in 1995 and 1996 threatened “worldwide economic catastrophe,” cost taxpayers more than $800 million and “shook international confidence in U.S. government bonds.” What’s more, a failure to raise the debt ceiling would not only result in a government shutdown itself, but would cause “worldwide financial panic,” a “default on the national debt,” a “severe drop in economic growth and employment,” and an “actual increase in long-term deficits and debt.” The GOP plan to threaten public safety and national security in order to secure a full-on economic meltdown is much more than naive, it’s a surefire disaster.

Like Bush, some GOP members including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) are beginning to realize the “chaos” that would ensure from such a policy. As the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen notes, certainly their public remarks which “position a shutdown as beyond the pale help create an incentive for Republicans to avoid one.” But Paul’s own impossible proposal to find enough cuts to balance the deficit in one to two years threatens “chaos” of its own and “even possibly a shutdown.” Rep. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap, which Bush touts as a good shutdown alternative, is just as misguided. Not only would it radically undermine Social Security through privatization, it would tax the middle class at a higher rate than the wealthy and end Medicare as we know it. While Bush is right to warn his comrades against a shutdown, his misplaced “hope” that younger GOP members will “show a better path” appears to be equally naive.

One of the most destructive practices of private health insurance companies is the practice of denying care to customers for frivolous reasons. Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services started including denial rates on its information section about health insurance companies on HealthCare.gov, in an effort to inform the public about this practice by the industry.

It was this practice of frivolous denials that ended up costing Jacksonville, Florida woman Alisa Wilson her life. For months, Wilson, her family, and the surrounding community had been pleading with her HMO to approve coverage for a liver transplant. Although Wilson was enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, she was not guaranteed care because she was “forced to join a private plan as part of a Gov. Jeb Bush-era experimental overhaul of the program,” meaning she had to deal with a private, for-profit insurance company to get her care, not a government agency accountable to the public.

Bush’s overhaul made “Florida the first state to allow private companies, not the state, to decide the scope and extent of services to the elderly, the disabled and the poor, half of them children,” the New York Times reported in 2005, as the move was being considered. “[N]o one is proposing changes as far-reaching and fundamental as” Bush, the Times noted.

After “scores of e-mails and…the help of a Florida state legislator,” the HMO, Sunshine State Health, finally gave in and approved coverage for Wilson two weeks ago. Yet her health was too severe for surgery by then. On Friday evening, Wilson passed away:

Alisa Wilson, 37, died Friday at 8:50 p.m. after a lengthy battle with an undisclosed liver disease, said her father, Eric Wilson. “Her liver was gone,” Wilson said. “There was no more left. She needed that transplant two weeks ago.”

About a week and a half ago, attorneys working on Wilson’s behalf said the insurance obstacles had been worked out. By then, however, her health was too shaky to risk going under the knife. “If they did it months ago, my daughter would be alive now,” her father said.

Representatives for Sunshine State and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which manages Florida’s Medicaid program, said they couldn’t speak to the specifics of the case, citing privacy laws.

Unfortunately, it has become increasingly common for states to outsource their Medicaid programs to be administered by private health insurance companies that have little accountability to the public compared to public programs like Medicare. A 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation report found that “All states except Alaska and Wyoming have some portion of their Medicaid population enrolled in managed care” — where Medicaid pays out to private organizations like Managed Care Organizations that contract with HMO’s — and “managed care is the dominant care delivery system in most state Medicaid programs. Forty-six states and DC have more than half their enrollees in managed care; in 20 of these states, over 80% of the Medicaid population is enrolled in some form of managed care.”

While the recently passed health care law is doing much to curb some of the worst abuses of the health insurance industry, one of the best ways to help people avoid these practices of the private health insurers is to offer them an alternative like a Medicare-style public health insurance option. As a part of her deficit reduction plan, Rep. Jan Schawkowsky (D-IL) proposed a robust public health insurance plan that would be offered to Americans. Not only would it operate cheaper and not committ the same abuses as the private insurance industry, it could cut the deficit by as much as $10 billion during its first year of implementation alone.

In May, ThinkProgress guest blogger Joe Sonka — who maintains his own blog at Barefoot and Progressive — broke the story that Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul opposes the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Today, the 20th anniversary of the ADA’s passage into law, Paul decided to skip a local event commemorating the landmark legislation:

“What a shame it is 20 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we would have a major candidate for the United States Senate stand up, stand up and say that he is against the Americans with Disabilities Act,” [Jack] Conway, the state’s attorney general [and Democratic Senate nominee], said to loud cheers from a crowd in the Capitol Rotunda who were observing the legislation’s anniversary, …

Pamela Roark-Glisson, executive director of the ADA Action Network of Kentucky and director of Independence Place, a center in Lexington for disabled persons to live independently, said both candidates were invited to the Capitol event but the Paul campaign never replied.

Instead, Paul’s priority of the day is his campaign’s $1,000-per-attendee fundraiser with former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R). The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein notes the irony of Bush appearing on the anniversary of “a signature piece of domestic legisation” signed by Bush’s father, former president George H.W. Bush:

ADA, which made it illegal for employers to discriminate against the disabled, was a signature piece of domestic legislation for Jeb’s father, former president George H.W. Bush, and not merely because Congress forced it down his throat. The 41st president pledged his commitment to the bill starting with his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. “I am going to do whatever it takes to make sure the disabled are included in the mainstream,” he said.

Indeed, when the legislation was celebrating its 19th anniversary, last year, the elder Bush put out a statement, congratulating President Obama “for taking some time today” to commemorate its significance.

Barefoot and Progressive reports that “labor, civil rights, disability and community activists” protested the Bush fundraiser this afternoon.

- William Tomasko