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.”
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