Jeb Abandons Jeb!

Even the former Florida governor has given up on his brand.

Isaac Brekken/AP

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Perfect last-minute Christmas present for the low-energy person in your life who needs an extra exclamation point: Jeb!

Not the candidate, just his name—upbeat punctuation mark and all. The word has apparently lost its appeal. Even to the candidate.

Last winter, months before Jeb Bush announced he was running for president, a Miami intellectual property attorney filed a trademark request for the word “Jeb!” on behalf of a mysterious Delaware corporation called BHAG LLC. As we discovered this summer, BHAG was an acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This phrase came from one of Bush’s favorite business management books, and when he was governor he used this term to motivate his underlings. It wasn’t until Bush, as a declared candidate, filed his financial disclosure form in July that the world learned he directly owned BHAG. 

One of BHAG’s few activities was to trademark “Jeb!” As is par for the course, the US Patent and Trademark Office accepted the submission and requested additional information before it would grant the trademark. But according to that office, on November 9 Bush’s application was officially abandoned. Technically, Bush has until January 9 to restart the process, but for now the name is not trademarked and open for anyone else to try to grab.

According to the original application, Bush wanted the name reserved for use on leather key chains, stadium cushions, stemware, stuffed toys, hair bands, and other cool stuff. In April, the USPTO asked BHAG to provide, within six months, written consent from Bush himself to use his name. Bush never responded. So the USPTO issued an abandonment notice regarding the trademark request.

Bush’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

To be fair, Bush has had many other things to worry about these past few months. But his chief antagonist, Donald Trump, did find the time to re-up his hold on “Trump,” and he added a trademark claim to cover the use of his name for books on how to succeed in business and politics.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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