“I think going forward, we have to deal with our larger structural problems. The biggest one, as far as I’m concerned is we’re no longer socially mobile as a country. You have people that are born poor, there is a higher and higher probability that they’re going to stay poor and people who are born rich, there is a great probability that they’re going to stay rich. It’s so un-American. And yet none of the conversation and the debates are really about this. But upward mobility is a way to solve a lot of the problems because then people don’t default out of fear or exasperation… if they feel like life isn’t fair to them they can’t succeed – it’s only the big interests that can succeed… then they default to something that looks a little more like Europe than historically our republic has been.”

— Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe)

“Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.” –User comment guideline, The Big Picture blog