Here we are on LeftNeck Chick/Nicole Sandler

Bush's End-Run? Well, Florida's a lock so why not?

In case you missed Rachel Maddow's show last night she did a wonderfully informative piece on the possibility of a Jeb Bush run for the White House, via electronic write in. Watch and then return to us for a renewed discussion on our crappy, riggable election systems here in Florida.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

On-line voting, on-line primary, on-line candidate hatched through a process that isn't audited, isn't public, for all anyone knows the result of a thousand people employed by Rick Scott and the Koch's sitting in a room mashing vote buttons over and over . Oh, and in all 50 states.

And what state better for such a machine hatched fake candidate to steal the electoral votes than here in Florida with 29 up for grabs in a truly swing state! A state that has Rick Scott for governor, in control of Kurt Browning who is in control of the rigged elections!

Wowsers! What a deal? And Florida? Yep. That's Bush territory.

But Bush isn't running. No. He just has several former strategy people well placed within Team Rick Scott, Team Rick Perry and elsewhere.

Now call me crazy again. Tell me our democracy isn't in danger. Tell me you feel safe relying on systems which glitched 38,000 votes in Hillsborough County and gave us Rick Scott.

Here's the link for Americans Elect.

See my previous stories concerning Florida' rigged election systems by typing in "rigged elections" in the search box.

Or download my book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State using the link provided in this sentence.

Gigantic RAT in this video

I don't know what a "Gannett" is. Help me.

Do you know? I don't, and I used to work for one. This one in fact.

We have this thing in Brevard County  Florida. It's called a "Gannett". I don't know what it is. Perhaps you have one too.

It claims to be a newspaper but it's not. It just sits there like a sphinx that charges extortionately for advertising. Our Gannett goes by the name "Florida Today." How about yours?

Often what it produces as far as "news" is rather fluffy and light. What now comes out of this Gannett more often than not, was once called "infotainment," or "advertorial," or "evergreen," which meant it could run at any time. These are kisses to the community that seldom inform. They seldom give us information we can use to club corrupt officials over the head with. Which is what newspapering used to be all about, keeping those officials in check.

Back in my day, there were a dozen charming insults for these "journalistic" offerings which are designed to break up the news copy. Now the news copy, if it makes it out of this Gannett at all, is bobbing out in a sea of "evergreen". A little man in a boat shouting to us a mile from shore on a windy day.

What's that he saying? See him waving there?

Wave back. Smile. Go back to sleep.

You see, at our local Gannett, they've run all the investigative newspaper reporters out and silenced the remainder. How about yours?

Public opinion? I've heard it spoken of in other parts of the state. But we here in Brevard County have had all of that taken away from us, you see. Gannett says it's all for the best. A thing of the past, "opinion". Soon the very word itself will be illegal. Just now it's unfashionable; dirty, to be stifled with contracts of legal gibberish that no one can read.

What's that? I'm a liar? Really?

Below you will find a link to the Magna Carta of "terms of use" Faustian contracts.

I ran into this document after I was attempting to post a comment to the Gannett concerning an all-expenses paid trip to Israel taken by our governor and our local politician Senator Mike Haripopolos.

Unsatisfied in insulting us by taking this trip that likely won't result in anything more than fake-job fanfare and spread sheet pointing, Mikey has to also go the extra and write to us from the road so we are sure to get good and angry. And our Gannett is here to help pave the way for that anger.

I found it odd Mike would be posting about God so early in his missives. I thought he'd leave it till late in the game; not make us swallow so much crap right out of the gate.

No. Let the irony commence immediately.

Our Gannett makes it so that one must sign onto Facebook first, before one is permitted to comment to online ditties such as a strangely self serving piece by Senator Mike in the form of Israel diaries. But the filtering and moderation doesn't stop there.

No. I can't even see what the other writers are saying about Mike's missives just now, and I know those comments are good. I just know they are scathing! As they should be!

Hush children. No. Gannett knows best. Gannett mind rapes you with the rage of knowing you're paying for this hypocrite to bob his head at the Western Wall, then jot down his empty headed little gibberish about God. And there you are, left in your own room of rage, stewing in the knowledge that your comment has just been sent to a moderator's hell with the others. And no one will see those words.

The Gannett will wait, and wait, and wait before posting them until everyone has moved on with their day, until we've had enough and moved on. The comments will then be dissolved electronically.

Why? Why do this?

Well it's a Gannett, after all, children. It doesn't do anything. It feigns its own industry. It smothered up the market of news ages ago. Like Walmart, it categorically killed off, or swallowed up the competition. When another would raise its head above the blades of grass, the Gannett merely lowered its advertising rates and wiped those silly competitors out in a week.

So we, like the muffled hog-tied victim have to sit here and take it from our Gannett when they offer us brain droppings from ethically challenged Mike Haridopolos, phoning in his sanctimony from Israel, on a trip we all paid for.

Thanks Gannett. Thanks a yahoo.

Kindly read the Magna Carta of all "terms of use" contracts offered by our Gannett.

"Closet" Democrats Everywhere

Oh, it's bad. It's a damn shame. It's like a sickness. A sickness of cowardice. A disease.

I had a bagel this morning with an old friend of mine who worked with me, years back, on a daily news-rag.

And she told me something that just about made me sick to my stomach. She said that during a Bill Nelson fundraiser held at a swanky country club in Indian River County, the media were kept out not by republican thugs adversarial to the press.

Oh no. No. It was the democrats themselves who fought to keep the press out, especially the photographers. Why? Because the social stigma, and the business repercussions of admitting affiliation with the democratic party! These were potentially too great to risk!

So be a dear and put your cameras down and not ask who's in here donating a measly $25 per plate in a milquetoast effort to - yeah yeah- "support" Bill Nelson.

"Good God! After all, so and so down the street might just discover we are (gasp!) associated with Bill Nelson! OMG and he's, like, one step away from Mao!"

"Heavens, and our business might dry up, to-boot!"

I have one question: what the hell is this, Northern Ireland? Are we living in Ulster? Are we living in the days of Sinn Fein? I mean, where is Gerry Adams when you need him? What's next? A wall? Murals? Hostages? Bombs? Barbed wired? Where the hell is this? Is this America?

Is it now illegal to be a democrat?

What is going on? And democrats? What a bunch of craven cowards! When was the last time you heard of a republican ashamed to admit he was a republican? What the hell is wrong with you people? Seriously. How do you expect your man to have a fighting chance to get re-elected if you're too damned chickenshit to claim him as your own?

Is this what it comes down to? Your "friends" might make your business dry up? Wait? In addition to not inviting you to their next party?

Do you have "friends" like this? If so what sort of a weak sap are you, if you have "friends" like this? If you stomach these sort of friends, what sort of a craven gutless social weakling are you? How do you gaze in the mirror? How do you meet your own eyes?

If these are your friends and you are still sucking up to a social set capable of this sort of behavior you have no soul; you have no core; you have no right, to call yourself a democrat. You, my friend, don't get it. And you likely never will. You are a limousine liberal. The worst kind, a cowardly one. You need to seek another political party that has no core, no spine, no soul, no objectives, no principles other than self interest. No social conscience.

Hey! They're called republicans. Look into it. Leave the good works to people who care.

And this sort of cowardice isn't isolated to Indian River County either. No. My local newspaper Florida Today just shoveled along the last serious investigative reporter they had - Jeff Schweers- to greener pastures elsewhere. Arizona I am hearing. Where the local Gannett paper there will likely keep him locked in a corporately sanitized muffled muted hamster cage, just the way they did here.

I have seen weekly newspapers offering more news content, more push back to tyranny, than our Gannett rag these days. I mean, it's bad. I swear to God. It's...I don't even like to admit I used to work there. Godawful. Shameful. Literally, like reading a baby-food package.

Cowardly retreat from corporate tyranny is not confined to newspapers, either.

I have actually heard that local teachers are too afraid of being labeled as "anti-christian" to offer support for our local candidate for the Florida house; too cowardly to help unseat a republican thug who thinks dwarf tossing is a remedy for our ailing economy. A thug who votes lock step with the ongoing efforts to (wait for it) dismantle public education. The same effort whose ugly natural conclusion is these same teachers reapplying for their old jobs, at half pay and no benefits from a big-box learning corporation.

Teachers won't step up to unseat our dwarf tossing republican who hates teachers; because they are too insipidly concerned for the social stigma, and reduced opportunity for advancement, should they be "outed" as a democrat.

Dig that.

Talk about being brainwashed to vote against your own interests; apparently, just like during the days of the inquisition, all you have to do to get the masses to kow-tow is tell them they are going to hell if they start to think, if they start to look out for themselves. If they dare to raise their heads up and look at what's really going on; sure, they're "hell-bound" See? They're "baby killers". They "don't support the troops". The "d" word.

And some of you democrats fall for this? How dare you call yourselves democrats. How dare you say you are "progressive" or you are "liberal?"

Until you show some spine, stand up and fight, you don't have the right to use these words in describing yourself.

Tax Breaks for Big Corp at Work

Just before I got fired for doing my job as a newspaper reporter (and doing it well), I wrote this article:

I had no choice but to write it. Some things you can't ignore; not and call yourself a reporter. There I am sitting at a city council meeting, and in comes this distraught woman. She's been canned from DRS/Finmeccanica (weapon's maker) at the same moment the company is taking massive tax breaks and incentives to move their major operations from Palm Bay into the neighboring city of Melbourne.

The move, costing Melbourne city taxpayers $650,000 in tax incentives and road improvements, was touted as a way to bring in 10 high paying jobs into Brevard County, and retain 450 more.

But the woman, Heike Alpert, said she was only one of 17 employees being laid off in the move, that very day! Which by 8th grade math is -7 jobs.

How perverse are these people, by the way? Fire 17 employees the same week you're getting tax cheese for "bringing in jobs".

Let's see that means for every job lost, $92,857 was paid. Oh but $85,000 was paid to improve roads for the company. And since those improvements remain behind, let's deduct that as we need to be totally fair to everyone included and, yep, $565,000/-7 that makes, -$80,714

Yes, the city paid a corporation $80,714 per full time position nixed, and collateral damaged ten more newly minted "I lost my job" zombies sent to the unemployment lines.

The city said "here's money, so you can fire some workers! Have at it!"

No? That's not what they said? Not fair? It wasn't quite like that? City fathers thought they were doing the right thing? Yeah?

Yeah because the company essentially said, if you don't give us this money, 450 employees, who we are now holding hostage, can't remain in Brevard County any more, bitches! And we'll fire all their asses, or we'll send them to New Jersey! Because we are just that damned crazy!'

No? That's not how it works? I'm being harsh again, am I?

Wake up. That's how these deals work more often than you'd care to know and no one ever calls them on it! What ticked my memory on this beside the fact that my first article may have done the job in getting me fired?

Well, because the company in question just career-killed 70 of those 450 hostages; laying off as many workers yesterday.

And my local paper tried to bury the news on 4-B until I called them on it, on their facebook page. They grudgingly posted the item on their webpage, and I have shared it with you here: the entire story, that no one will ever tell you. Certainly not Florida Today.

That's okay, you can thank me by buying my book here.

Subtlety alert!(The web links are found in the different colored print)

Kids, this is how the "tax breaks" for the "job creators" shell game often works. One has to ask cui bono from these little deals? Because there's always a 'cui' and it never works out that that cui is a taxpayer. So why are public officials so damned lustful toward these deals? Gee, I wonder.

Interesting thing about DRS is they make targeting and acquisition for tanks, heads up displays and so on. You know, war stuff.

Here was an American company raised on the mother's milk of the American tax dollar. They develop this gear which our troops use.

Then in 2006, they sold the company all of it to Finmeccanica, an Italian weapon's manufacturer.

Great. There go your tax dollars and the know-how!

Not that we have a problem with the Italians -yet- but, who are they going to sell this gear to?

Talk about transfer of technology, there's every chance the gear, the know how, all of it will be trained right back on us as weaponry in the upcoming worldwide conflagration.

All of the people in this deal are the same sort of folks who would call you a Jesus-hating communist, an Obamalover, if you point any of this out.

There's no check no balance on whether those who qualify for corporate food stamps ever use their money to "create jobs" or even better society one iota. None.

Hell there are no assurances that your tax dollars aren't going to create weapons that might end up in the hands of someone who eventually kills you or one of your children.

Oh, but, Rick Scott wants to make sure you prove that you're out there making your cold calls every week to qualify for your measly $215 in unemployment. And as you slip into poverty, citizen, he wants to make sure that when you apply for food stamps you're not taking drugs.

You damned freeloader!

How Screwed are our elections? Watch.

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3

#RickScott should work for 1 day, as an unemployed person

He should get up at 7 a.m. to the pangs of hunger. Or maybe to the thumping of the landlord's fist on the door to his run-down apartment, or maybe the sounds of coughing at the shelter, or the maddening itch of a thousand mosquitoes in the woods.

(Let's not go that far. Say he still has his apartment that his wife banished him to for "losing" his job.)

He should walk over to the moldering couch with his breakfast, a cup of coffee from last night in his hand, turn on television if he still has one, and enjoy the local news - featuring Rick Scott pretending to work a job somewhere. A job the common unemployed man would scream, just scream bloody murder to get.

Let him repair to the shower. No soap? No problem, there's still some Dawn under the sink. Toothpaste? Baking soda. Necessity being the mother of invention.

Maybe Rick Scott could then check his messages, if he still has a cell phone. He can listen to his (former?) wife crying, howling for him to pay his child support; to come up with a solution to a cornucopia of problems facing the new nuclear family (mom and kids, dad parts unknown) the corporatocracy is creating throughout the American landscape.

Perhaps she waits for the sick child in need of antibiotics, outside the doctor's office without a stitch of insurance to pay for the visit, or the medication that will be prescribed. Maybe the lights have been turned off at home; she's in a panic at a bus station the children in tow having brought them to work with her, to the consternation of her employer. Maybe the sheriff's department is at the door on eviction day. Where will she go? No one has answers. He makes no sounds down the line. She hangs up after screaming at him for his uselessness.

Next, if he has the money for a bus, he can with thumping headache, make for his first destination a Solantic Walk In Care Center, there to take a drug test in order to continue to qualify for food stamps which will be sent back home.

Where next?

McDonald's of course, with a stack of resumes in hand, highlighting his skills; detailing his last job as a sales manager at a major food chain; or perhaps he was a junior insurance claims adjuster, or perhaps he was a nurse at the local public hospital. Maybe he was an ESOL teacher, or a social studies instructor and driver's ed teacher, all of course, none of these skills will translate to the position of fry cook at the local fast food schlep-stand and everyone in the equation knows it; especially the hiring manager.

And of course there is that college degree and that master's in education working against him now. He's "overqualified" not to mention too old. And he's been out of work for two years. So it's down to the strip mall, door to door.  No. No one wants him at Belk Lindsey. No one wants him at Kohls. No one wants him at Marshall's. No one wants him. No one.

What's next?

With resources dwindling, let Rick Scott then hitch back to his apartment feeling lightheaded and thoroughly demoralized. There, just in time to take nutrition in the last dregs of a liter bottle of Diet Coke, and a slice of cheese on some moldy bread.

So with one last comfort to him, let him turn on the television news again, to see a segment about his alternate universe self brag about tax breaks to so and so corporation, to see his alternate self pump a fist to mythical projected "jobs" as if they exist now; right goddamn now! When everyone knows the factory in question is yet to be created; the roads, the pipes, the other services the dregs of his own property taxes are paying for, won't be in place for more than a solid year.

By which time so and so corp. could just as easily bring talent in from out of state, or out of the country. Or they could claim their plans changed; exigencies of a down market course. You all understand the needs of "job creator" Corporation So and So come first these days in the new Florida. What are you some sort of socialist? Are you a commie? And who's to stop them from not hiring a single soul?

Certainly not Rick Scott in the governor's mansion, who by which time will have long ago filed those "new jobs" in the win column, and of course used them as a basis for more tax cuts, for more corporations, for more "job creation".

Let Rick Scott then lay his head on that dusty pillow with the knowledge that tomorrow, he will have to get up and do it again. And on that next day he knows he will hear the denigrating and snide remarks on every television he passes by - the cynical, blistering chides from a thousand experts from the GOP and the Tea Party - urging him to just get off his ass, and get a job.

And the biggest voice in that chorus of oblivious "let them eat cake" hatred, will be that of Rick Scott.

Miami New Times (Remote) Interview

Miami New Times Writer David Minsky asked me about my book, what's in it, why I was suspicious of the 38,000 ballots in Hillsborough.

Below are my responses to him from his ten questions (one's a repeat) which you can guess by reading them.

New Times went curiously silent when I detailed what I thought happened in Hillsborough. Minsky twice said the interview would run, but when presented with additional evidence regarding the flaws in our voting systems throughout the state (and what I have presented here is only the tip of the iceberg) the New Times went mum.

This happens a lot with big media. Telling people their vote may not be totally secure is something akin to asking Neo to take the 'red pill'.

It could be the larger story of the vulnerabilities in Florida's elections systems has either scared them from mentioning me. Or it may be something they wish to pursue themselves without involving me.

So be it. It's enough for me to know and you to know that if they pursue this story, I brought it to them after they approached me about my new book. In any event I spent time on my responses to them, and so I don't want that time to be wasted. I offer them here.


Dear Mr. Minsky;
Thanks so much for your interest.

1. Summary: We take the reader through his election and the first legislative year in office. We start with his budget statement at The Villages, flash back to our brief introduction to him on Rick Sanchez’s show (CNN), as head of Conservatives for Patients Rights. And from there we move forward until the end of October this year. All the while we dissect his major policies including healthcare, drug testing, education. We also discuss how he is working in lock step with the republican supermajority (Super pejorative). During this time we learn some distressing things about our elections in Florida and the 38,000 rescanned ballots in the middle of the night in Hillsborough County which, there is a very strong argument, carried the day for him to gain his office in the first place.

2. I decided to write a blog first. If there was a key event I’d say it came back in February he floated a trial balloon ( or trial turd, if you will) that he wanted to close as many as 52 “underperforming” state parks. That set me in motion. I had seen this sort of thing before in Brevard County. That just burned me up because I know it’s a scam. By March he had totally revealed himself as harmful to the state with his attacks on education. I am a former teacher, as well as a former journalist. I know how tough it is to teach. I know what these heroes go through day in day out. Aside from which I cannot enumerate all of the good things Brevard County public school teachers and administrators have done for my kids. I would take a bullet for some of them. I mean that. His attacks on teachers and public schools are inexcusable.

3. I have been published before going the traditional route. My book Where Hell Freezes Over can still be seen on Amazon. (Please excuse the long link here)
I knew how long the traditional route can take. I didn’t spend much, if any time, trying to get the major publishers interested. I thought this book must come out before the next legislative session so that the people of my state know the entire picture of what is happening to them. The traditional publishing route simply isn’t designed to be that reactive.

4. Rick Scott has created a cottage industry in the form of antipathy toward himself. There are many worthy groups out there, namely Pink-Slip Rick, Awake the State, Progress Florida, and the list goes on and on. There is a vast market that he has created. And of course, he did tell us “let’s get to work.” So I got to work, on him.
I knew getting it out prior to Christmas was key relative to the build up before the next session in the legislature. There is also a heavy political season brewing as you know. The Tampa Republican Nomination Convention is in August. You see Rick Scott rolling out “Ricky 2.0” his new, toned-down, kinder, gentler version of himself. He’s even trotting out the Bob Graham workaday routine. (Vomit.) I am not going to let the leopard change his spots and continue to run a con on the State of Florida. He is a shill for a very dangerous, fascist agenda. All you have to do is lay out the record, which I have done, spicing it with some humor and righteous rage, and you see that. A few days ago, it dawned on me the perfect time was approaching in the anniversary of his election.

5. The title morphed from Rick Scott for Dummies to Running it Like an Asshole, to Rick Scott: Hatchet Man, to Rick Scott: Criminal Intent, to Rick Scott: Enemy of the State.
You see they grew more serious. This, because his attacks on us grew worse. The latter title fit best because what he is doing is quite literally attacking Florida. He is an attacker, a hostile occupier, an enemy. As Alex Sink said during the campaign, he’s not a “businessman” he’s not a rugged individualist “boot-strapper” he’s a corporate raider. That type of person masks a lack of vision with the drama and furious He sells off assets in order that the stock holders receive a temporary bump in their share price. Then he bails. He’s on to the next thing. He loses interest. He often leaves the place significantly worse off than when he arrived. He uses a spread sheet to justify himself. The numbers thereon are often gibberish, lies, meaningless.
But, with Rick Scott it goes even further than that: he’s running this game on us ,too. He’s trying to turn Florida into a demonstration farm for the new corporatized, fascist America. We’re his guinea pigs. Each one of us is but an asset on a spread sheet. Our homes, our schools, the institutions that keep us safe, such as our prison system; he considers them his now, to do with as he will.

6. I started seriously working on it as a book in May but much of the material was available already from my blog www.rickscottwatch.blogspot.com. Getting involved with Facebook, “Rick Scott Watch” (with the eyeball) I was tapped into a source and became a source of information concerning his administration. I was encouraged by the size of the “outrage” market.

7. I haven’t sought offers in the traditional route. And it’s been out less than 48 hours, so not yet.
8. That it’s funny as well as serious. If you want to commiserate with a fellow Floridian as equally pissed off as you are, buy this book. I want them to know that everything I say is backed up by copious notes at the end. (Kindle doesn’t allow footnotes to appear on the pages so these are at the back just before the end notes.) I invite them to explore the end notes thoroughly, use every link. Our election system is compromised but only by continuing to vote en masse can we show it for the ponzied and hacked scheme that it has become here in Florida. I demonstrate that. I want an investigation into 38,000 “rescanned” ballots on election night in Hillsborough County. There has never been an official inquiry into that. There remains no answer from officialdom. I find this unacceptable and, one could argue, indicative of a fraudulent election that gave us Rick Scott.

9. See answer #2.

10. I started out this life as a democrat, flirted with republicanism following 9-11, found out I was lied to, and returned to my roots with a vengeance.

11. Quoting from a letter I sent to him asking for comment, here is the last paragraph.
“All opinions, slang profane or otherwise, are honestly expressed.
I mean no harm to your person, your family. I only ask you remove yourself from public office and return to private business with all success and blessings following you. Failing that I will make every effort to remove you from your post by all means legal and non-violent, through whatever voice I can express myself.
I remain at your service for whatever response you’d care to give. Failing a response I simply must publish the work in time for broadest possible circulation.”

Voting System Major Flaws Before #RickScott eElection

Recent documents have surfaced indicating that the Florida Department of State was warned about massive vulnerabilities in our elections systems prior to Rick Scott's election, and did nothing about it.

Florida's Secretary of State is the chief elections officer. But the office is partisan appointed.

Newly elected Gov. Charlie Crist  appointed then Paco County Supervisor of elections Kurt Browning to the postion in 2007. Browning held that position until April 2010, then retired abrubtly, three weeks after Rick Scott announced his candidacy.

Browning, who was also the head of the ES and S (election machine vendor) elections supervisors users group, was re-hired as a double-dipper in January of this year.

But in July 2010, with Dawn Roberts serving as interim secretary of state, an outfit called Florida Voters Foundation sent her a memo highlighting problems with the voting systems statewide.

Paragraph one gets right to it:

"We are writing to express concern over threats to Florida elections including voting systemsdefects, cyber security administrative procedures and inadequate county funding. All pose serious threats to Florida elections including the August 24 primary in 49 days and the general election in November."

Page three, paragraph four, indicates that a software patch for chips in the tabulating machines by Dominion which had acquired some of their hardware from ESand S, and software from Premier, was not given to Dominion in time to prevent those chips from failing.

As we know, a failure in vote counting memory cards downloading was blamed in the 38,000 rescanned ballot fiasco in Hillsborough County.  Hillsborough uses Dominion voting systems.

Earlier in the report the group points out flaws in the optical scanning machines by Premier, which were also bought by Dominion voting systems.

Thus, 32 counties out of 67 have reportedly aquired bad code, AND potentially bad hardware which were used in the 2010 election of Rick Scott, and will be used again in the 2012 elections.

The group also noted lax cyber security as far as the submission of electronic ballots in that the official in charge of voter system certification David Drury, told all 67 county supervisors of elections, that "encryption would be optional" in the submission of those ballots.

Additionally, the same screen "freezing issue" that surfaced in the undervote issue of 2006 in Sarasota County which resulted in the erroneous "election" of Congressman Vern Buchanan, was also still evident in ES and S machines in 16 counties.

All of this, leading up to the 2010 election of Rick Scott.

The likelyhood that Kurt Browning didn't know about all these flaws prior to his strategic retirement is highly doubtful.

David Drury who was on hand with Kurt Browning during the recount of 2006 in Sarasota County involving the defective ES and S machines, was employed throughout Browning's retirement/six-month vacation.

Of course none of this conclusively prooves that anyone, knowing of these vulnerabilities, conspired to use said knowledge to ensure that the candidate of his choice, won the election.

No. There is no proof here. Only a trail of Machiavellian coincidences, circumstantial evidence and motive.

Strangely Florida Voters Foundation, charitable 501(c) ceased updating their website after their July 7, 2010 report. The phone number to their Miami address directs one straight to an automated message system that makes no mention of their organization.

However, their sourcing material listed in their report includes the State Constitution, Florida Department of State records, records from the United State's anti-trust lawsuit against ES and S, and a product advisory from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. All credible.

Read all about the Hillsborough election flaws leading to the election of Rick Scott in Rick Scott:Enemy of the State.

Available for download at Amazon.com Kindle Store

New Book About Rick Scott

Well someone went and did it. We're not saying who, but, here it is. And here's the link if you want a copy!!!!

Back in February "Rick Scott Watch" began the quest of documenting the horror: the election of and the continued assault on the masses by, Rick Scott.

Soon it became obvious that a combination of blogspot, facebook and twitter were needed in order to get the message out that we were under attack in Florida.

The blog posts began to take on the form of chapters within three months of beginning the combined effort known as "Rick Scott Watch. It wasn't until we delved into his election, though, the seriousness of what was happening in Florida really began to dawn on the author of this work.

These days the idea of waiting for a major publisher to make an offer on a work that needs to get out NOW is distasteful as it is comical. The traditional publishing industry isn't designed to be reactive in its current state. There was no other choice.

A few weeks ago, NYT produced an article on Amazon/Kindle's new format, Kindle Direct. It turned out to be a perfect match for us. The book arrives a year to the hour since his election. Recall, he wasn't officially the winner until the early hours of Nov. 3 because of a very suspicious SNAFU in the Hillsborough County elections office.

Read all about it on your Kindle or Apple analog device. Enjoy!

Sherlock Holmes Renders Judgment on Florida's Elections

"In Florida we find ourselves facing precisely the same conditions leading up to vote tampering that likely transpired in ‘04. The groundwork has all been arrayed as it was then.

We have a group of quasi-religious, arch-conservatives embroiled up to their shoulders in the politics of a state; all moving forward, working on a presumption of a just-cause, wherein the ends justify any means.

They wish to use Florida to help convert America into their image of it; where corporate Christians rule the rest of us with profitable impunity. They remain at the controls of power, and yet inaccessible and unresponsive to us. They tolerate the media only so far as to get them through the next sham election cycle. Law enforcement is their private tool of separation and insulation from us.

Through their control over the state’s governor, they are also in control of the secretary of state’s office; he being the chief elections official. And in this strange case, unelected to his post; he is appointed by the governor.

Most curious.

The secretary is a lifelong conservative republican with religious leanings, Masonic connections, and obvious future political yearnings publicized in newspaper reports.

He is also a “double dipper” in the common parlance. That is to say, he is perfectly entitled to draw his pension, valued at more than $400,000, while also receiving his salary for his position. And therein could be found motivation to help perpetuate deceit and fraud.

But what evidence do we have he is “in” on the conspiracy? At most it is circumstantial, but, it is considerable.

Leading up to this particular election, Florida’s secretary of state is seen attempting to put as many ballots in the “provisional,” basket as is humanly possible. There, presumably, they can be quietly discounted with none the wiser at a later time.

He is shortening the early voting period; providing for mass confusion at the polling places. He also seeks to deny many good citizens the opportunity to register their friends and neighbors to vote.

This has resulted in numerous legal challenges which are costly. And yet, there is not a word of protest from our governor, the alleged staunch protector to taxpayer interests. Most irregular. And yet the pattern fits with our hypothesis of a group bent on subverting the vote by whatever means it sees fit.

The voting systems themselves are much the same as they were in ‘04. In fact the same software is in place as evidenced by our previous dealings with the Hillsborough County elections office.

The state and its electoral votes, are absolutely crucial to the outcome of the next presidential election.  An election where not only the future of a state hangs in the balance, but the entire world.

In sum, there is every reason to believe fraud has taken place in the election of Rick Scott. As well, there is more reason and motive to suggest Rick Scott and his operatives will attempt to steal the election in 2012 for the republican party using the compliant and well-paid secretary of state toward that end."

Florida Vote in Peril!

WARNING letter sent to #RickScott

Oct. 19, 2011

To: Gov. Rick Scott:
Florida Governor's Mansion
700 North Adams Street
Tallahassee, FL 32303-6131
(850) 488-4661

Dear Governor Scott:

This is to inform you of the pending publication of my book Rick Scott: Criminal Intent
( another working title is Rick Scott: Enemy of the State) I plan on publishing soon, as an eBook available on Amazon.
There are serious allegations I make in this book aimed at you and your administration.

The top are as follows.
1. It is my expressed opinion election rigging, most likely through the 38,000 rescanned ballots in the middle of the night in Hillsborough County, either carried the day for you or prevented a recount and we will never know which. I base this off conversations with officials at the elections office, the history of that office well documented in the public record, the history of Diebold/Premiere machines here in Florida which were bought and still in use by Dominion voting systems both in hardware and software. I also base this off the shear outlandish number of the tainted ballots and the method in which the rescanning was handled, sans a full canvassing board. I also base this off your general willingness in everything you do, to subvert the law, or to remain purposefully ignorant of illegal acts or “blunders” curiously benefiting you. I never purport proof that you directly had knowledge of said election rigging/tampering, only that you are the recipient of your office illegally and may know you are, and most assuredly should know. I also base this expressed opinion off the fact I have made the allegation repeatedly in newspaper and web forums all over the state and the country (most often in Huffington Post). I have even filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office, which has been passed on to the Sec. of State’s office and there has been no response from anyone whatsoever. Dead silence. Most concerning indeed.
2. In the book I also remark heavily on your association with the Koch brothers. Yes, one trip to the Vail summit you obviously meant to conceal from us is enough proof for me or any reasoning creature of their undue influence. That the pattern is evident in all that you do you mean to transform Florida not solely for the purpose of creating jobs, but the subversion of the constitution, with an eye toward bringing the dawn of a new age of corporatism designed to commodify and enslave us. All well-thoroughly expressed in the work.
3. I reiterate all previous allegations against you as expressed in the Department of Justice Press release regarding HCA and newer allegations expressed against you during the primary, regarding Solantic.
4. In the work I also show where your religious comments bespeak of an effort on your part to reduce the separations between church and state which is a founding principle of this country. I note with alarm your Lt. Governor also makes religious remarks “Christianity is under attack” which more than hint at a governing policy on the part of your administration to reduce us to a state of militarized, pseudo-Christian fascism here with an eye toward ushering in a large scale influx of military industrial businesses. This in a broader effort on the part of like-minded fascists you associate with to ignite World War III for financial gain and power.
5. In general I further maintain you foster a pattern of quid pro quo, coupled with an opacity toward the press, which can only lead to, or demonstrate an extant state of pay-for-play corruption, and a selling off all our public institutions for either unseen financial gain, or increased power.

It was not my initial intent to make such a serious work when I began this book. At the time I began I felt the corporatism and tea party conservatism you espoused was silly and would likely be a temporary annoyance that would make good fodder for a tome of humor and commentary. But I discovered something far more dangerous in what you are doing. Things that absolutely require the strongest response in my medium, which is commentary.
I have replied to your forums on Twitter and Facebook, these being your expressed preferred methods of direct communication, and you have not addressed any of my concerns. I have made efforts to confront you personally regarding my concerns. Most notably at the resort in Stuart Florida, during your Lincoln Day Dinner tour. You remain for practical purposes, wholly inaccessible to the common citizen. Your schedule is posted day-of, or day-after your appearances. Or, you appear only at events where democrats, or citizens with protests or concerns, are either barred from attending or physically removed for voicing them .
Failing all else I send you this with my contact information should you decide to address these concerns or offer rebuttal.
I have never met you. In video clips I have seen, you seem like a genuinely pleasant person in terms of surface social conduct and conversation. In this regard I bear you no ill-will.
However, I feel your actions and the apparent ease with which you harm our citizens through your initiatives hints toward some form of inherent defect in your character and deep pathology. I have said as much in my video blogs. Unfortunately my honest opinion of your condition is rather grave. Of course I am not a licensed professional only a citizen with an education and an opinion.
Nevertheless, I think you have convinced yourself – somehow – that what you do is acceptable, given the corrupt practices of our time. I think you further lie to yourself using religious, nationalistic reasons, and free market mantras, that what you are doing is for “the greater good.”
I openly admit that in this regard and for precisely the same reasons, Hitler was similarly inclined. And thus, given your wealth, your current position, the hold you have on our legislature and your obvious future aspirations, a similar end result is entirely possible if your forward progress remains unchecked.
So the strength in my convictions – and my strongest possible words honestly expressed - comes from the seriously deleterious affects your actions continue to have on our state. They require strongest possible words – at times utterly profane, I admit this here - in published form in order to awake and marshal public opinion to counter what can only be viewed as deliberate attacks, warfare, on our citizenry and our constitution.
All opinions, slang profane or otherwise, are honestly expressed.
I mean no harm to your person, your family. I only ask you remove yourself from public office and return to private business with all success and blessings following you. Failing that I will make every effort to remove you from your post by all means legal and non-violent, through whatever voice I can express myself.
I remain at your service for whatever response you’d care to give. Failing a response I simply must publish the work in time for broadest possible circulation.
Sincerely,

David Anthony Kearns
Palm Bay, Florida

Suck Ass Journalism at its worst

Scott: I want Florida to be science, tech hub: MyFoxTAMPABAY.com

I don't even feel the need to comment on this one. Can a whore-nalist kiss ass any harder?

Rick Scott Psychopath

BS Explanations of a Hacked Vote Caught on Film

I have to say Mr. Abercrombe seems nervous as hell. Maybe it was just in that film.(See here for a better view) And what is the deal with this situation? Here we see the ballots being hauled into the elections office out of the back of someone's car? Not county vehicles? In an interview with Earl Lennard, he mentioned a county truck that had a tire flat. (He also said all of this happened during the primary and not the general election between Scott and Sink).

Again, Abercrombie repeats precisely the same line, and does so nervously.

Five early voting places across most of north and west Tampa. They discovered the problem late in the day. They drove the ballots to be rescanned to the Falkenbrug Road location. If as they said in one article, there were 15 workers rescanning 38,000 ballots throughout the night, that means each would be expected to handle 2,550 some odd ballots. Assuming 5 seconds for each ballot to run through the machine, that's four hours, accounting for each worker with a break for the bathroom.

If they "discovered" the problem at 10:30 p.m. assume an hour to drive the "voted ballots" to the office. This exercise was nearly over by 1 a.m. or shortly after according to some press reports.

The math on this likely doesn't wash.

End result? No recount, and we ended up with Rick Scott as our governor.


Update: More hink from the Scott election in Pinellas County. Check the guy grabbing the ballots and stuffing them into a box on the back of his truck! Nothing sketchy there!

Stan Explains the Emails

Mother F*&cker Rick Scott

Stan Finds Rick Scott's Missing Emails!

Stan Speaks Again!

Defining #RickScottistan

Here are some terms used to describe the Rick Scott administration. They will find use in our upcoming book about him. ENJOY!AND SHARE!

7-7-7: The Rick Scott Jobs plan summed up in meaningless vaguely “Dominionist” or quasi-religious repeated use of the number seven.

Chemical Jim Crow: Current suite of drug-testing laws attempting to marginalize state workers, middle class, poor, and minority communities.

Coupons for Students: The voucher program proposed for Florida schools.

Corporate Dark Age: The time we are living in.

Corporate food stamps: Corporate tax cuts as described by the Rick Scott team.

Corpservative: One who is all about corporate power.

Electronic voting: Method used to steal elections in 2000, 2006 and 2010 in Floriduh

E-Gate: the inadvertent and yet fortuitously strategic deletion of emails pertaining to the Rick Scott transitional government’s (likely) corrupt hiring practices. Also see “iDelete.”

Flori-duh: Mythical Florida as described in the corporate lie that the stupidity of the voters, and not the electronic voting machines, keeps screwing up and or stealing our elections.

FTD, also “Fuck the Doomed”: The conservative healthcare plan for the rest of us, in three words. After a quote from the cult classic movie, Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray. Also FTA, “fuck them anyway”, the essential response from conservatives when you point out that FTD is actually more expensive than a less aggressive stance toward the sick, the poor and the old.

Ginoke Trees: a kind of tree found only in Rick’s Scott’s Florida, capable of thought, planning, and hard work. Used in a Rick Scott inaugural sentence. “The Ginoke trees that surround us are what they are, because they had a plan.”

Glitch: A random excuse used by software vendors and elections officials to describe Machiavellian screw-ups with the voting. Seldom explained, and soon forgotten. 2. An excuse used to conceal a stolen election. e.g. “When they stole the election for Rick Scott, they likely did it in Hillsborough County.”

Gulag, Inc.: Program of privatizing all prisons, providing a profit incentive to incarcerate as many law-abiding, and non-law abiding citizens, as humanly possible.

Hillsborough Glitch: the one that either elected Rick Scott or prevented a recount. We will never know which. The glitch that resulting in the hand-rescanning of 38,000 early voted ballots, in the middle of the night which has never been explained to the public.

iDelete: The event in which Rick Scott, through a staffer, fortuitously deleted some 200 emails off his iPad during the same time E-Gate was coming to light.

I-4 Apartheid: Current voting restrictions attempting to reduce minority, student, GLBTG, poor, middle class participation in the 2012 elections.

Junta: a perfectly reasonable description of Rick Scott and the Republican supermajority in the Florida legislature.

Koch Stasi: Americans for Prosperity and other Koch intelligence and intimidation networks. The string-pullers of the tea party movement.

Koch Suckers: referring to the Koch brothers, and or their willing serfs such as Rick Scott.

Koch Whore, also “Koch head”: A politician who deliberately “lifts skirt” i.e. is willing to hurt the public they serve through act, vote or speech, in order to court Koch or big business financial support for present or future political position.

Lincoln Day Dinner: an excuse to get clubby with wealthy donors to the GOP while the teachers you are beggaring are screaming to keep their jobs just outside the walls of a resort where you are hob-nobbing.

Magic Coupon: Voucher. Any worthless promise given as the bait-and-switch for privatizing public programs and institutions.

Motherfuckers: metaphorically speaking, people who will not stop at merely “schtupping your mom”. See previous reference to Koch Whore for similarities.

NARO, aka the New Ayn Rand Order: the deflection of blame for any self-interested atrocity by use of Ayn Rand as an excuse kewpie.

Obama: Rick Scott’s catch-all prefix to any number of words, policies, concepts, or anything in the physical universe, which can be blamed for a great evil. (Obamamath, Obamaliberal, Obamarail, Obamacare, Obamamosque etc.)

Pornservative: Perversely pornographically conservative. Or, a flagrant, pornographic distortion of conservative values personified in vote, speech or act.

Republican Super-pejorative: The republican supermajority in the Florida Legislature.

Ricky-World: an altered bizaro universe, cosmology, or ethos, whose logic is vastly divergent with the real world occupied by those of us who are not Rick Scott.

RILAB: “Run it like a business” , also LGTW “Let’s get to work” also RILAFWH, run it like a fucking whore house.

Screwed Pooch: The 2006 election race of Jennings v Buchanan in the 13th congressional district, Sarasota County. 18,000 under-votes were noted on touch screen iVotronics machines by ES&S, Inc. Buchanan won by 369 votes, after a recount on Nov. 13.

SOFARRM: The totally illegal regulatory reform initiative by Rick Scott to hold up all regulations (AKA laws) for his personal review and ruling prior to permitting them to be implemented, regardless of the fact they were voted on by previous legislatures. Acronym for the program outlined in his inaugural address.

Staffer: catch-all waste-basket of blame in the Rick Scott administration.

Teabaggers, teapotters etc.: Members of the tea party used by Kochs for nefarious purposes which often run directly contrary to the interests of all people, teabaggers or otherwise. Also Koch-baggers, Hate-Baggers

Tea scorn: the especially rancid brand of intolerant scorn used by the tea party.

Tea-Pawns: tea party member.

Tea-Bubble: the sudden deflation of the tea party movement with the death of the Ryan Health Care Plan. On or about May 26, 2011. Coinciding with Rick Scott’s 29 percent approval rating by Quinnipiac University. Scott’s numbers were the lowest among six hated governors studied.

VQWH , also The Volusia Quantum Worm Hole: Election night in the year 2000, some 16,022 votes were counted backwards for Al Gore in the Bush v Gore presidential race in Precinct 216, Volusia County, which at the time was using voting machines by Global Election Soutions, later Diebold, later Premiere, now Dominion voting systems. No attempt has been made to explain the VQWH by officialdom since Gore conceded the race.

Walmart Jesus, also, Tea- Jesus, also JesusLITE™. The corporate branding of the word “Jesus” or the concept of Christianity for nefarious purposes. This version of Jesus bears no resemblance to that spoken of in the accepted Christian scripture. Hence they know him not.

Are we serious? "Free Speech" Zones?

This week the Orange County/Orlando PD are enforcing a “free speech zone” plan for the Orange County Convention Center during the travelling lunatic asylum called the Republican Party debates and the straw poll.
And now a word from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law….” Yadda yadda. You SHOULD know the rest. Live by it.
Time and again these zones have been found to be unconstitutional, legally unenforceable. And yet we saps continue to fall for it.
A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel concerning these two zones, capable of containing 200 people, (Wowzers! Really? Thank you Orlando for defending freedom!) failed to address the entire issue of previous challenges to the very nature of these zones.
A reporter can’t do a Nexus search, or even a Google? No? Too much?
So again, we witness journalism at its finest, by stenography.
Let’s not alert the public that this has all been tried before repeatedly. And the courts ruled in favor of those who challenged these “zones of free speech”. That in essence, the entire country is in fact, a free speech zone.
Yes, Virginia. It’s okay to protest where ever you feel like it provided that place is public.
We need to stop paying attention to these goddamn “zones” or “cages” of free speech. They are NOT repeat NOT constitutional nor do they serve anything but the status quo. Not freedom.
It is time for some or all of us to suffer arrest rather than continue to allow these piecemeal suppressions of our rights.
To that end:

Here are some new ground rules for protesting.
1.Don’t ask where you can protest. Just protest.
2.Never fill out a permit to protest. Just stop that weak assed crap right now. Stop it. Just stop.
3.Don’t be afraid to get arrested to protect the Constitution. People are dying for your right to do this. Don’t betray their sacrifice by being so weak you are too scared to stand up for freedom. Stop that. Now.
4.Say whatever you need to, to get yourself heard.
5.Don’t be afraid to be called a thug or shrink at your civic duty to protest because someone said you’re engaging in “class warfare.” Yeah? And?
6.Every so often you may need to call someone an mf. So be it. There are a lot of those in power now. Use it as it applies. Eric Cantor, for instance. The point is, stop being so polite. Defend free speech by actually using it.
7.Be inventive with your protest, creative. Perfect example. Is a large Pink Snuggie an article of clothing? Or, is it a sign? Well, it can be both, with a little bit of black electrical tape! How about these letters in black on a nice bright pink Snuggie FU GOP. They’re telling you to remove your sign? “I don’t have one. I am wearing this. This is an article of clothing, officer.” Tie them in knots. Don’t make things easy. Let them do the work figuring out what you’re doing wrong.
8.Don’t drink alcohol when protesting or do drugs as it gives them an excuse to arrest you and discredit your cause.
7.Be on time for your protest. Don’t arrive late and be all half assed about it.
Know what your aims are and what you plan to do.
8.Do not use violence in your protest. But if it is used against you, cover up, and make sure someone in your group is filming it. Get it on YouTube.
9.If you get arrested, don’t resist with anything but passivity. Battery on an LEO is a felony. Don’t be stupid. Make yourself heard, get yourself filmed as you are being arrested.
10.On film state specifically who you are, what you are protesting, and why you refused to comply with the officer’s order. i.e. “My name is John Jones of Oak Street Orlando, I am protesting the outrages perpetrated by this governor, I have every right to be here in a public place with this sign in my hand.” It’s that simple.

Let's be careful out there. But let's also quit this crap of letting Big Corp/Big Government corral us into pens. You know who submits to pens ever so politely?

Sheep. Think of sheep everytime you see one of those cages.

Why Ricky Wants to Kill University Tenure: Koch

Right now the weakling, lockstep legislators in Tallahassee are preparing to consider changes to higher education. These would mirror those done to K-12, and those changes already in place in the Republic of Texas.
Texas Governor Rick Perry is the paragon of higher education, let’s learn from him. Sure. Because that makes sense.
You have to ask yourself why Rick Scott, a man not known for his deep and probing intellect, nor even his ability to successfully string words together, simply must-must-must meddle with higher education in our state?
Koch is the answer.
A major Koch agenda is to reign in one of their perennial night terrors: an independent academia, higher education. They give seminars on morphing higher education to suit their needs at their conferences.
The BP oil spill is a perfect example of the benefits of an independent system of higher education.
USF is to be commended for their work using oceanographic research vessels to find the missing oil on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. They, along with Woods Hole Oceanographic and the University of Georgia were all instrumental in telling BP, NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the world, “no, the oil is not gone. Not by a long shot. Most of it sunk to the bottom.”
If they hadn’t been diligent in their work, we’d all be swallowing the line of filth from “officialdom” that matter can simply vanish.
This group of universities was also instrumental in challenging the laughable flow rate estimates from BP, the ones that sought to minimize the volume of oil coming from the end of their busted pipe at the bottom of the ocean, in order to save themselves from heavy, deserved fines.
Or how about the USF researcher who found more contaminated beaches despite the assurances of BP, and state and county officials, that there were none to be found west of Destin?
Try all of this without an independent academia. People get tenure at universities precisely for this reason, so that research can remain pure; untainted by corporate pressure and influence. Whether through the arts, science or math, so that inquiry can be something that benefits all of us.
The Kochs want to end all that of course.
One of their programs is reigning in higher learning. They are going after EPA internships

for example. They want to stop that. You know that radical agenda to protect the water supply?
Their attempts to infiltrate FSU are now famous. In case you hadn’t heard, Charles Koch provided millions in charitable donations this past March to the Florida State’s economics school through his foundation. But, the money comes with a hitch.
The foundation’s advisory board now has control over hiring decisions in the department. Those using the grant money must submit applications show that their research meets with the goals of the foundation, which obviously will follow along the lines of Friedmanian laisseze-faire , “pay more to the rich” cruelty, no doubt.
Sadly FSU took the money.
What’s sort of odd is, the money also came with another little hitch: the new hires taking advantage of the charitable donations for their salaries, would come into their new jobs with tenure! Their hiring also would be approved by the trust’s advisory board.
In essence, the Kochs are hiring, nay, installing, teachers in the economics department at the oldest state university in Florida. Tenure was key. They had to have tenure going in.
Who gets tenure on day-one? How is it we allow billionaires to install their operatives at a public university in our state?
Why?
So here’s our new governor fresh from his meeting with the Kochs during their “come to Muhammad” summit in Vail. You remember? The one our governor tried to sneak off to, but was only caught in the act by an enterprising reporter for St. Pete Times, otherwise we would never have heard a thing about it?
As said earlier, documents obtained in previous seminars, show that changing how universities think, how they do things, is a top priority for these Kochs. They give seminars about it at their functions. (See the link at the first reference below)
Right? So, here he is, Rick Scott come down from the mountain and all the sudden, university professor tenurship is the new target. It’s the greatest threat to freedom since the Cuban Missile Crisis! Sure! Didn’t you know that? What’s wrong with you?
Once that tenure is stripped, gone is academic independence to do work that might help write laws to protect us from corporate predators.
Soon a newly installed Koch professor is telling us that not only are there billions and billions of gallons of oil to be had in the Everglades (there aren’t) but drilling in the Everglades is actually good for our environment.
And that’s why Ricky is so damned interested in destroying tenure in our university system: because the Kochs told him to.
But the caveat for the FSU case will be framed as follows: in those cases where corporate donations are used to fund tenure, tenure can remain. The public taxpayer cannot fund university professor tenure.

Pam Bondi covers Ricky's unethical backside like an accomplice

Getting awfully damned sick and tired of Pam Bondi.

Just hours before Ed Buss, former Department of Corrections Chief officer for the State of Florida was scheduled to appear Sept. 16 before an appeals court and give a deposition, Attorney General legally blocked him from doing so.

This is the news that greets us this morning: Bondi Scott-blocked his testimony.

Ed Buss was fired by Rick Scott: there it is. There was no "parting of the ways" or any of that happy horseshit they feed you.

He was hired out of Indiana Department of Corrections, then the director, to come in and take over here, because people from out of state are smarter. That must be it. Hell, Scott even entered a small bidding war with Michigan, remember? We just had to have him!

But some hires are so smart, they actually are smarter than the governor! And, perish the thought, they have a conscience and they can actually add and subtract.

What Buss discovered was troubling to the governor: that privatizing 30 prisons from Bradenton to Key West would actually cost the taxpayers $25 million in as yet unpaid severance in the form of sick leave, bonuses and so forth.

He kept trying to tell people this. That on balance, there were no savings to speak of! Effectively none!

You take the pending doom of Belle Glade, which is home to the Glades Correctional Institute, which would close down in the privatization plan. How do you quantify that misery?

GCI IS the town of Belle Glade, Palm Beach County. It is the economic spine of the community. It has been for 80 years.

But, in Ricky World, it is more important to take public properties, facilities and services and hand them directly over to his corporate pals, like Geo Group Inc., the top contender for Ricky's favor in the Friends of Rick (FORK) Gulag Inc. program.

Geo Group gave $25,000 to Rick's inaugural fund, so he could put on his huge shindig. Longtime friend and lobbyist for Scott, Bill Rubin, is also a lobbyist for Geo Group. One of Rick’s transition team’s budget advisors, Donna Arduin, was a former trustee for Geo Group’s property trust.

We simply must, must, must privatize prisons, don't you get it? This has to happen, even before we improve our infrastructure. I mean like, yesterday people, even if it doesn't save any money.

This is from a recent St. Pete Times article. Here's one of the reasons why this just has to happen: because it will please those Koch suckers, Dave and Charlie, who fund Reason Foundation:


"Some of the early momentum for prison privatization came from a policy brief by the Reason Foundation, a conservative think tank with the GEO Group among its many donors, and Florida TaxWatch, a business-backed policy group. The groups proposed a privately run continuum of care model for prisoners in two regions of the state."

Geo Group’s footprint in Tallahassee politics is large. In 2008, House Speaker Ray Sansom reportedly slipped a line item or two into a bill resulting in a shift in funding enabling Geo Group to build a private prison in Santa Rosa County, where Sansom is from, called Blackwater Correctional Institute. The modern facility is located but a few miles from the extant, Santa Rosa Correctional Institute, a fully functional prison in every way.

As late as Sept. 6, 2011, the FBI were still investigating the relationship between Ray Sansom, and Geo, even seizing a computer belonging to a Santa Rosa County Commissioner in their quest.

Six hundred million dollars has been shifted in the state budget just waiting for Geo and their lone competitor in the market space, Corrections Corp of America, to come in and play with. What's wrong with you people? It's time to usher in the age of Gulag, Inc.! Come on! Get on board or get left behind.

Who cares if privatizing prisons in Arizona has been shown to be more, not less expensive to the taxpayers; creating a world in which Corp. Jail cherry picks the healthy prisoners - we got us a fine young buck over here, all his teef and evuhthing - from "the traditional models" just so Gulag Inc. can stay within the letter of Arizona law? Who gives a shit, right?

Who needs for even one shred of information to come out at this time during a lawsuit filed on behalf of correctional workers because the destruction of the state's pension system in order to make this happen is unconstitutional in the state of Florida?

Enter Pam Bondi, Ricky's accomplatrix, to shut down this line of inquiry with an emergency order. Her law degree serving once again as Ricky's fig leaf. It's disgraceful.

Explain one way keeping Ed Buss from testifying protects the citizens of Florida from crime? You can't. Face it. It is as naked and shameless a move on the AG's part as you could have dreamed up in a seedy Florida crime novel.

In Case You Missed US on Left in Dixie

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Florida's Chemical Jim Crow Law aka drug testing

At some point, well early in the game Rick Scott knew – he just knew – he wanted to drug test everything not nailed down. It was a mission!
He was behind a measure to make the poor welfare recipients submit to drug screening in order to obtain help from the state, and from their own unemployment insurance accounts that they had already paid into before they were fired.
Oh, and, by the way? He was the principal shareholder in one of the biggest providers of random drug-screening services in the country, and certainly in Florida, Solantic Walk-In Urgent Care centers.
Ooopsie! Didn’t see that coming? No?
Leave off that what he was essentially doing was criminal-profiling by use of poverty as the screening criterion.
Let’s just talk about this fading, ever-blurring concept called, “conflict of interest.” Again, what are the three funniest words in the English language when strung together? Right! “Florida Ethics Commission.” Very good, have yourself a Klondike Bar on me.
Apparently he has never heard of this wondrous thing called “conflict of interest”. So too, our state has stopped caring for it, or seeking to define it in most situations with regard to Rick Scott. Likewise our officials and news media are more apt to let him slide until such time as he works himself out of the latest ethical quagmire he has gotten himself into, and moves on to the next, over and over, and over again in a dizzying daisy chain of Machiavellian bumbling that always seems to work out in his favor.
When he first detailed his plans to drug test some, or all, state employees, people sat up and took notice. He had a hard-on for it, lusting for everyone to start taking drug tests, beginning with those working for Florida.
In a completely unrelated thread started long ago – oh sure, you buy that, don’t you? – Scott started the Jacksonville-based company Solantic Urgent Walk-in Care, in 2000. It grew to include 32 urgent care centers statewide. In 2007 he reportedly sold a 30 percent share for $100 million to Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, a private equity investment firm in New York. His remaining stake was valued at $62 million.
“Don’t you have one of the largest drug screening companies in the state, Rick?” (this is you talking.)
“No, no, children. Shhhhh. Mustn’t notice the bad thing.”(this is Rick.)
“Are you sure?”
His answer was, yes, he did but there was no conflict of interest. End of discussion.
Well there very much was an apparent conflict of interest, despite how nicely a bland denial sounded to those who approve of his every move.
His response to the un-svengalied was essentially, ‘Well, okay but for starters I am turning my interest in that company over to a revocable trust held by my wife Anne, so there is no conflict of interest.’
(You again) “Well, that doesn’t matter; YOU would still get the money from all the drug screening eventually. YOU would also see a nice bump in value if the company ever went public!”
‘Well this company will never, ever, never do business with the state.’
Which is a very slick caveat, you have to admit, considering that he was considering privatizing prisons, and public schools.
So, yes, technically, if somehow he could mandate it via magic wand that the company would never-ever-never do business with state government ¬¬- and he had no earthly authority to make this stratospherically stupid statement - it wouldn’t be doing business with the state, it would be doing business with private corporations that he had sold off government institutions to.
See how he thinks? Is it clear now?
There were broader ethics problems with his stake in Solantic, as the St. Petersburg Time’s Michael Bender pointed out on April 13, 2011, and this is likely where his relationship with Team Scott went downhill :

“Then-Attorney General Bill McCollum's campaign questioned how a Scott administration would handle Solantic, which is regulated by the state Agency for Health Care Administration and hires doctors that are licensed by the Department of Health.
“ Both agencies are run by the governor's appointees. In the general election, Democrats alleged that Scott started Conservatives for Patients Rights to fight President Barack Obama's health insurance changes as an attempt to protect Solantic, which serves high numbers of uninsured. If more people were insured, Democrats suggested, Solantic could lose business.”

When people pointed out that Bender was right, that virtually every single way he could run it, he would still be holding a massive conflict-of-interest sign in his hands called “Solantic”, he decided to sell his remaining interests to Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe.
And it took him until April (2011) to do it.
Reflect for a moment on the Boolean anti-logic at work here: Despite the fact he was, allegedly, no longer in control of said company, he sold it anyway.
And, this is the key part, he has NEVER, EVER, NEVER disclosed the sale price, nor terms of the sale, to anyone, EVER.
This despite the fact the company was undeniably worth more after he rammed through his draconian drug testing policies.
Every public official has to disclose any business transaction, any receipt of monies, or gift, no matter how small, while they continue to serve at the public’s pleasure. It is a law obeyed by city council members and county commissioners on up the food chain.
Rick Scott has never released the details of this sale to anyone despite the fact he most certainly benefited from it, financially. And the newspapers, apparently, have stopped asking him about it.
It’s another issue which, for whatever reason, has ceased to exist.
As far as the drug testing goes? Here’s what happened.
House Bill 353 was signed into law by the Big Guy, on June 1. The measure which went into effect July 1, 2011, requires those receiving welfare checks to submit blood, urine, or hair samples for drug screening prior to receiving their state welfare checks. Oh, and once again, the accused pay for their own screenings up-front, and wait for reimbursement on the back-end from us, once they are deemed innocent by virtue of clean result.
The measure also requires the Department of Children and Families to inform families they can avoid testing, if they don’t apply for benefits.
Gee thanks.
The history of “drug test the poor” predates Rick Scott.
In 2009 there was a state senate bill for drug testing the unemployed (SB 2062) produced by Sen. Mike Bennett (R-Bradenton). Yes, the same state senator who was videoed with soft-porn images open on his personal browser, while the senate was discussing new restrictions on abortion in case you were wondering.
In any event, Bennett admitted his decision was purely economic. That the unemployment trust fund was “running dry” and so, why not trim the fat, and make sure the money was going to unemployed folks who are more deserving?
“It’s the people who really need the unemployment (compensation), those are the ones I am here to protect,” he said on a Fox interview with Steve Doocy in March 2009.
The bill died. But, the idea lived on despite a landmark Michigan federal court case, which branded such measures as unconstitutional.
No matter. Rick Scott campaigned on making it a law. And suddenly, following the November 2010 election, it seemed all the furious governors of the Kochpocaplypse and their Tea-colytes and their Tea-cozies in their respective state houses, wanted to drug test hell out of those scum-sucking poor, and the unemployed!
Yeah! Get those f-ers! The damned jobless poor! Who do they think they are?
And who among them crowed most vociferously for such measures? Yes, he who owned a 70 percent share in a multi-million dollar company that provided drug tests for $35 a-pop, one Richard Lynn Scott.
In March 2011, Scott signed a bill into law giving the state the power to randomly drug test any state employee, at any time. The $35 test would be paid first by the accused, and reimbursed should the test prove negative. Florida was first of 27 states to book this landmark piece of legislation!
Yay! Go us!
That month State Representative Matt Gaetz (R- Fort Walton Beach) took up Bennet’s fallen banner and pushed a bill in the house to random drug screen those seeking unemployment compensation.
The bill produced a lot of press for Gaetz, some contention between himself and democrats in the house, voicing meek opposition, and even some chiding by fellow republicans who knew damned-well they were trying to shoe-horn in something that was already declared illegal.
It never got out of committee.
However, the measure to go after the welfare recipients, did make it out of committee, and through both houses like crap through a goose. Rick Scott was again on the boards with another win, June 1, 2011!
Yeah! Hell yeah! Eat it, POOR!
It took a while for mega-media to catch up with what was happening in Florida, that being a stepwise assault on the U.S. Constitution.
T.J. Holmes of CNN had the governor on during his morning show June 3, 2011 to ask him, just what in hell was going on down here? It became a venue to witness what we here at Rick Scott Watch are calling The Jim Crow Chemical Litmus Tests.
All the old stereotypes that make the racists grin like a dawg, and the minorities a little fearful and mad as hell at white America, come bubbling to the surface with these Jim Crow litmus tests.
Welfare=black, to the racists; and African Americans know damned well what the power structure is talking about, when it beats up on folks who have to ask for welfare.
Offering an opinion here: this catalytic angst might just be what the whole exercise of drug testing poor people, particularly welfare recipients, is all about.
You have to remember we’re dealing with an agenda foisted on us by people – the Kochs, namely, and their friends – who have lost the taste in their mouths for mere money. There’s no buzz anymore in just collecting piles and piles of cash. No bounce, no kick, see?
And their little games have proceeded to such a degree they’re now beyond merely holding power. No, now they’re into manipulating society itself in order to ‘hit that main line.’ Currently that’s the intoxicating buzz; like Mortimer and Randolph Duke, of Trading Places, remember? Manipulating vast sums of money, swinging the congress hard right, then holding it hostage, seeing if they can actually crash the system. Ooooh yeah baby! That’s their heroin.
When they get bored with merely manipulating society, surely they will chase their dragons on to other diversions, such as genocide, perhaps, starting War III. Stuff like that, see? That’s the next kick!
Back to T.J. who is a black dude on the left side of the screen, and Scott on the right side of the screen, again, who is most definitely a white dude; each playing their awkward part in describing, assailing and defending the Jim Crow litmus test.
You would agree that after the governor signs the bill into law, might be a little late, CNN? Perhaps?
Never mind, it made for hearty television anyway.
T.J.: “You don’t know if welfare recipients are using drugs. If you don’t know, why treat them like you suspect that they are?”
RICK: “Oh, I’m not at all. I just want to make sure, our taxpayers are not interested in subsidizing drug addiction.”
This is classic Rick Scott, by the way:
Q: “Governor, what makes you think the sky is green?”
A:“Oh, I don’t. I just want to make sure everyone knows that the sky is green.”
Later T.J. really nails him down. He just keeps after it. Rick Scott, as always, is a hostile witness for the defense.
T.J. : “You believe that plenty of people on welfare are drug users but it doesn’t sound like you want to say that.”
RICK: “Sure, T.J. Studies show that people who are on welfare are higher users of drugs than people who are not on welfare.”
T.J. (Smiles. Literally chewing his own fingernails, perhaps at the pun ‘higher users’) “Sir to that point, that would stop most people in their tracks. I don’t have the studies you are referring to but, you’re saying there are people out there who need this assistance who have lost jobs and are on welfare, they have a higher tendency to use drugs.”
RICK: “Absolutely the studies show that people who are on welfare are using drugs at much higher percentages than the population.”
Okay, there it is. He said it not once, but twice. There are studies out there; someone made these studies, and, they found out in these studies, that welfare recipients to a larger extent than in the general population, are drug users.
And then he went sideways-strange. Rick Scott’s Boolean anti-logic again. It was a mish-mash of conflicting statements that came next.
“The bottom line is, if they’re not using drugs it’s not an issue. Our taxpayers don’t want to subsidize someone’s drug addiction. It’s going to increase personal responsibility it’s the right thing to do for Floridians.”
Did you notice? Drug use just became full-blown addiction with all the associated stereotypes: a meth zombie or a rabid oxy fiend shooting up a walk-in clinic.
And even if they aren’t doing drugs; Floridians don’t want to subsidize their drug addiction? What, like in the future? Like, in case they were planning on it?
I just lost my job. I am clean, drug-free. But since I know the state is going to drug test me, I had best not pick up that nasty meth habit I was planning on getting. Whew, am I glad Rick Scott is looking out for me. I don’t mind marching right on down to the Solantic and paying $35 for a drug screening.
Certainly doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.
It obviously didn’t either to T.J. who demanded to know how much this was going to cost Florida?
“It’s an insignificant amount. We’ll see when we find out how many pass the drug test.”
And was it an insignificant amount?
Fast forward to late August of 2011 one month after it went into effect. Just do it.
It turns out testing welfare recipients discovered that just 2 percent tested positive for drugs. Another 2 percent elected not to pursue their claims, likely until a later date when the drugs washed out of their system.
The remaining 96 percent of those taking welfare who subjected themselves to the screening? Yeah, they were clean.
The entire welfare assistance program costs $178 million. At this rate, the drug testing of people taking this money, costs just a little bit less to run than it does in savings.
Net savings between $3,000 to $8,000 annually to the state; again, against a program that costs the taxpayers $178 million.
Wowzers! What a savings compared to the total that’s like four thousandths of a percentage point (0.004 percent)!
Now, what if we get more people to NOT do drugs! Then, it won’t save the taxpayers any money whatsoever! Awesome!
Because that just might happen after year one, in that humans are only slightly more intelligent than chimpanzees, who know damned well to take their hand of a hot stove.
But here’s the important part to some; 1,000 drug tests were purchased, in order to facilitate this program for just one month, also known as 12,000 tests a year, let’s say, at $35 a pop. That’s $420,000 which is a nice revenue stream for someone. Not saying who!
And multiply this by 0.96 and we get $403,000 coming FROM the taxpayers going TO private industry. Remember, we the taxpayers reimburse those who test clean!
We’re saving money, yes, a smidge. But 96 percent of all that money saved isn’t being used for anything but funding private industry drug testing purchases. It’s one of those exerbikes going nowhere. At first, anyway; at first, it stays put.
As savings become losses, year to year, because people beat the system, or find clean urine, or stop drugging, this becomes an an additional tax on us, that goes directly into the pockets of private corporations. And now the exerbike begins moving backwards.
And now what? Well, why don’t we only let certain “approved” drug testing companies, who are Friends of Rick (FORK), take over all the contracts? Seems to be the direction he is taking, isn’t it?
And? What happens when a monopoly is in place? The price goes up. Savings to the taxpayers go down even further because no one wants to pay for the kits which are more expensive. Now the exerbike begins accelerating backwards.
And? Now let’s say during the next legislative session, the public is so beaten down and accepting of all this drug testing and U.S. Constitution-stomping bullshit, they cave-in and say ‘sure why not, what the hell, test the unemployed while you’re at it!’
How many people in Florida are unemployed at this writing? According to The St. Petersburg Times in late 2010, there were 1.1 million Floridians out of work, of whom 612,000 were receiving unemployment compensation.
If at some point in the next year, you randomly tested each, just one time, you’re talking about taking $21.4 million from the taxpayers/bosses/those paying into the fund, and giving that money to corporations.
Oh, I’m sorry, if you’re still working at a 2 % positive rate, that’s, hold on let me do this: $21.4 million -( $21.4 million* 2%)=$20,927,000. From the taxpayers/bosses/people who paid into it, directly to corporations. Here you go!
Now assuming, no budget increases - because that’s how he rolls, right? Hold the line - $800,000,000 (Senator Mike Bennett’s 2009 figure for the Unemployment Compensation fund, which is allegedly running out) minus $20,927,000= $7.8 million.
Is unemployment going up, or down, year to year? Well, thanks to Rick Scott and company, because they created so many new jobs by demanding more stringent controls on a woman’s uterus; flying to Panama; going to New York and D.C. to hang with Donald Trump; and doing away with high speed rail and so on, it is very doubtful that the unemployment rate is going down. So, because of this, we should see ourselves spending more, not less, on this drug testing program of the unemployed if they vote it in (and they will! You watch).
Are the unemployed any more likely to make this program a “savings” to the taxpayers buy doing more drugs and getting caught? Or, in that they managed to get shit-canned the right way, i.e. laid off without cause, are these folks actually more apt to pass the drug tests and end up costing us more year to year?
Because if we want this program to pay for itself or save us money, what we really need from the public is to do some damned drugs! I mean, really; can these people just do the right thing, and get high?
Answer? Class, what say you?
My guess is, these folks will pass their drug tests at a higher rate, year to year, than welfare recipients, who are also being drug tested. This means the allegedly dwindling unemployment compensation fund, will drain faster, as more people are put on it.
Also, do we double-dip on those taking their unemployment drug tests along with their welfare drug tests? How does that work?
Uh-oh! Sounds like we need an administration, or a new agency, to keep all these ducks in a row! A new agency in Rick Scott’s “smaller, more efficient government”? What is this?
Great, so a more massive program called, ‘test the unemployed’, will end up costing private business, taxpayers and people paying into the UC fund more money by giving directly to corporations at an accelerated rate, year to year.
Why not just impose a flat, 3 percent sales tax on everything fill up a big old bucket with cash, and then FORK it over to Rick’s pals, every year?
Because, that would be too obvious, class. We have to create a crisis, stir up old hatreds and stereotypes, vilify someone poor, further divide the masses, create a cash hamster-wheel that spills off to Friends of Rick on the side, so that folks don’t notice what we’re up to.
Let’s go back to Rick Scott’s chat with T.J. Holmes on CNN for a minute and reflect upon what we heard.
Yes, he talked about a study that showed welfare recipients take drugs “at a much higher rate” than the average population.
He said it twice!
At a higher rate?
No, no! He said at “a much higher rate.”
But is it even true?
Well, Rick Scott’s Jim Crow chemical litmus test gave us one half of the data to measure his assertion, didn’t it. Two percent tested positive for drugs in a sample of more than 1,000 people. A pretty decent sized sample.
What about the general population? Here’s a figure dug up by the Tampa Tribune citing the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Services, in their 2009 study: 8.7 percent. That’s the rate of illicit or illegal drug use, estimated among the general population, of people aged 12 years and older.
So, again, Rick Scott has no idea what he is talking about. And when he goes on national television and gets backed into a corner by a reporter actually doing his job – they are so rare these days – Rick Scott just begins pulling stuff out of his ass. Rick Scott just makes it up on the fly. Rick Scott just flat-out lies into the camera.
Does this surprise you?
Most of you say ‘no’ at this point. Further, you are almost angry at me for even suggesting you should be a little shocked. After all, this is Rick Scott we’re talking about.
Well guess what? This drug testing crap is now law in Florida. It’s the law. We are spoon-feeding private industry cash, with no observable benefit to ourselves.
Oh, but, not as many people will get high? Or do crimes? Is that it?
Really? That number of 612,000, for instance represents a bubble of unemployed people actually collecting unemployment. Hey, their weeks run out, remember? Just as the number seeking welfare recipients, represents a bubble of those eligible for their program. When people fall off those rolls, or when they test positive and can’t reapply for a time, are they apt to get high, then, or not?
Take your time answering. I am sure it’s taxing your mind something fierce! No, really. Use another nanosecond to think about it.
As folks fall off those rolls, they are just as apt to do drugs as they ever were.
This is one more Ricky World example of robbing the middle class to pay corporations, while services are being gutted.
These programs don’t pay for drug education or awareness or drug treatment, and they sure as hell don’t pay for psychiatric medicine to help anyone.
This puts a dent in nothing. It solves nothing. It takes money from the citizens and hands it over to corporations, with no benefit whatsoever to anyone other than those who make and administrate drug tests. People like Solantic.
And as their prices increase, and they will, we all give them more and more money.
We have not even mentioned the lawsuits these new programs will generate, nor the considerable sum we the people of Florida will have to expend fighting them.